Artificial Neural Networks for Coastal and Ocean studies

Artificial neural network (ANN) is a major tool in artificial intelligence computing and it is also extensively used across all disciplines of coastal and ocean engineering including offshore, deep-ocean and marine engineering. A review of important research studies reported so far in these areas is presented. ANN in general has provided either substitutive or complementary option to traditional computational schemes of statistical regression, time series analysis, pattern matching and numerical methods. A reduced data requirement in case of ANN applications was also noticed in some cases. In future advanced and hybrid ANN architectures are likely to be applied in new and unexplored areas of applications. Similarly attempts are likely to be made to tackle issues such as large variations in input, longer prediction intervals and prediction of extremes by extrapolation beyond the sample time. A recent application of the ANN technology to forecast waves in real time sense over the vast coastline of India has been briefly described.