Skip to main content
Log in

Forecasting Physicochemical Variables by a Classification Tree Method. Application to the Berre Lagoon (South France)

  • Published:
Acta Biotheoretica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The dynamics of the "Etang de Berre", a brackish lagoon situated close to the French Mediterranean sea coast, is strongly disturbed by freshwater inputs coming from an hydroelectric power station. The system dynamics has been described as a sequence of daily typical states from a set of physicochemical variables such as temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen rates collected over three years by an automatic sampling station. Each daily pattern summarizes the evolution, hour by hour of the physicochemical variables. This article presents results of forecasts of the states of the system subjected to the simultaneous effects of meteorological conditions and freshwater releases. We recall the main step of the classification tree method used to build up the predictive model (Classification and Regression Trees, Breiman et al., 1984) and we propose a transfer procedure in order to test the stability of the model. Results obtained on the Etang de Berre data set allow us to describe and predict the effects of the environmental variables on the system dynamics with a margin of error. The transfer procedure applied after the tree building process gives a maximum gain in prediction accuracy of about 15%.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Banfield, C. F. and L. C. Basill (1977). A Transfer Algorithm for Non-hierarchical Classification. Applied Statistics 26(2): 206–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bell, J. F. (1996). Application of Classification Trees to the Habitat Preference of Upland Birds. Journal of Applied Statistics 23(2–3): 349–359.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breiman, L., J. H. Friedman, R. A. Olshen and C. J. Stone (1984). Classification and Regression Trees. Chapman & Hall, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breiman, L. (1996a). Bagging Predictors. Machine Learning 24: 123–140.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breiman, L. (1996b). Heuristics of instability and stabilization in model selection. The Annals of Statistics 24(6): 2350–2383.

    Google Scholar 

  • Breiman, L. (1996c). Technical note: Some Properties of Splitting Criteria. Machine Learning 24: 41–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chambers, J. M. and J. H. Hastie (1992). Statistical Models in S. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole computer science series.

  • Eder, B. K., J. M. Davis and P. Bloomfield (1994). An Automated Classification Scheme Designed to better Elucidate the Dependence of Ozone on Meteorology. Journal of Applied Meteorology 33: 1182–1198.

    Google Scholar 

  • Efron, B. (1983). Estimating the Error Rate of a Prediction Rule: Improvement on Cross-Validation. Journal of the American Statistical Association 78(382): 316–331.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, H. P. and J. Rubin (1967). On some invariant criteria for grouping data. Journal of the American Statistical Association 62: 1159–1186.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghattas, B. (1999a). Prévisions des Pics d'Ozone par Arbres de Régression, Simples et Agrégés par Bootstrap. Revue de Statistique Appliquée 47(2): 61–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghattas, B. (1999b). Prévisions par Arbres de Classification. Mathématiques, Informatique et Sciences Humaines 142: 31–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartigan, J. A. (1975). Clustering Algorithms. John Wiley & Sons, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manté, C. (1989). A. C. P. d'un processus multiple non stationnaire: une application à des données météorologiques. Statistique et Analyse de Données 14(2): 25–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nérini, D., J. P. Durbec and C. Manté,, (2000). Analysis of oxygen rate time series in a strongly polluted lagoon using a regression tree method. Ecological Modelling, in press.

  • Nérini D., C. Manté, J. P. Durbec and F. Garcia. Localisation de séquences typiques dans une série temporelle multiple. Submitted to the Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris.

  • Penny, K. I. (1996). Appropriate Critical Values when Testing for a Single Multivariate Outlier by Using the Mahalanobis Distance. Applied Statistics 45(1): 73–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rocke, D. M. and D. L. Woodruff (1996). Identification of Outliers in Multivariate Data. Journal of the American Statistical Association 91(435): 1047–1061.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rousseeuw, P. J. (1985). Multivariate Estimation With High Breakdown Point. Mathematical Statistics and Applications, G. P. W. Grossmann, I. Vincze and W. Wertz, eds., Reidel Publishing, 283–297.

  • Rousseeuw, P. J. and A. M. Leroy (1987). Robust Regression and Outlier Detection. John Wiley & Sons, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rousseeuw, P. J. and B. C. Van Zomeren (1990). Unmasking Multivariate Outliers and Leverage Points. Journal of the American Statistical Association 85(411): 633–639.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, W. F. (1995). Forecasting severe ozone episodes in the Baltimore metropolitan area. Atmospheric Environment 29(17): 2387–2398.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sethi, I. K. (1991). Decision Tree Performance Enhancement Using an Artificial Neural Networks Implementation. Artificial Neural Networks and Statistical Pattern Recognition: Old and New Connections., I. K. Sethi and A. K. Jain, eds., Elsevier Science Publishers, 71–88.

  • Sheinfinger, H., A. Stohl, H. Kromp-Kolb and W. Spangl (1996). A Statistical Method for Predicting Daily Maximum Ozone Concentrations. Gefahrstoffe-Reinhaltung der Luft 56: 133–137.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stora, G. and A. Arnoux (1988). Effects on Mediterranean Lagoon Macrobenthos of a River Diversion: Assessment and Analytical Review. Natural and Man-Made Hazards, M. I. El-Sabh and T. S. Murty, eds., D. Reidel Pub. Comp., 525-546.

  • Stora, G., A. Arnoux and M. Galas (1995). Time and Spatial Dynamics of Mediterranean Lagoon Macrobenthos During an Exceptionally Prolonged Interruption of Freshwater Inputs. Hydrobiologia 300/301: 123–132.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilks, S. S. (1963). Multivariate Statistical Outliers. Collected Papers. Contribution to Mathematical Statistics. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 674–693.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Nerini, D., Durbec, J.P., Mante, C. et al. Forecasting Physicochemical Variables by a Classification Tree Method. Application to the Berre Lagoon (South France). Acta Biotheor 48, 181–196 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010248608012

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010248608012

Navigation