• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.395-432
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• 2021

Groundwater recharge rates vary widely by location and with time. They are difficult to measure directly and are thus often estimated using simulations. This study employed frequency and regression analysis and a classification and regression tree (CART) algorithm in a machine learning method to estimate groundwater recharge. CART algorithms are considered for the distribution of precipitation by subbasin (PCP), geomorphological data, indices of the relationship between vegetation and landuse, and soil type. The considered geomorphological data were digital elevaion model (DEM), surface slope (SLOP), surface aspect (ASPT), and indices were the perpendicular vegetation index (PVI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference tillage index (NDTI), normalized difference residue index (NDRI). The spatio-temperal distribution of groundwater recharge in the SWAT-MOD-FLOW program, was classified as group 4, run in R, sampled for random and a model trained its groundwater recharge was predicted by CART condidering modified PVI, NDVI, NDTI, NDRI, PCP, and geomorphological data. To assess inter-rater reliability for group 4 groundwater recharge, the Kappa coefficient and overall accuracy and confusion matrix using K-fold cross-validation were calculated. The model obtained a Kappa coefficient of 0.3-0.6 and an overall accuracy of 0.5-0.7, indicating that the proposed model for estimating groundwater recharge with respect to soil type and vegetation cover is quite reliable.