Integration of statistical models and ensemble machine learning algorithms (MLAs) for developing the novel hybrid groundwater potentiality models: a case study of semi-arid watershed in Saudi Arabia

The present study has proposed three novel hybrid models by integrating three traditional ensemble models, such as random forest, logitboost, and naive bayes, and six newly developed ensemble models of rotation forest (RF), such as decision tree (RF-DT), J48 (DF-J48), naive bayes tree (RF-NBT), neural network (RF-NN), M5P (RF-M5P) and REPTree (RF-REPTree), with three statistical models, i.e. weight of evidence, logistic regression and combination of WOE and LR. To predict the groundwater potential, nine groundwater potential conditioning parameters have been created. The Information Gain Ratio has been used to evaluate the impact of each parameter. The ROC curve has been used to validate the models. According to the findings, 15 to 30% of the study area has a very high or high groundwater potentiality. Furthermore, validation results revealed that RF based ensembles models outperformed other standalone models for groundwater potential modelling.