Significant wave height forecasting using wavelet fuzzy logic approach

Wave heights and periods are the significant inputs for coastal and ocean engineering applications. These applications may require to obtain information about the sea conditions in advance. This study aims to propose a forecasting scheme that enables to make forecasts up to 48 h lead time. The combination of wavelet and fuzzy logic approaches was employed as a forecasting methodology. Wavelet technique was used to separate time series into its spectral bands. Subsequently, these spectral bands were estimated individually by fuzzy logic approach. This combination of techniques is called wavelet fuzzy logic (WFL) approach. In addition to WFL method, fuzzy logic (FL), artificial neural networks (ANN), and autoregressive moving average (ARMA) methods were employed to the same data set for comparison purposes. It is seen that WFL outperforms those methods in all cases. The superiority of the WFL in model performances becomes very clear especially in higher lead times such as 48 h. Significant wave height and average wave period series obtained from buoys located off west coast of US were used to train and test the proposed models. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.