Ladouali, Sabrina; Katipoğlu, Okan Mert; Bahrami, Mehdi; Kartal, Veysi; Sakaa, Bachir; Elshaboury, Nehal; Keblouti, Mehdi; Chaffai, Hicham; Ali, Salem; Pande, Chaitanya B.

Study region: Six regions in Algeria have been selected as follows: Ain Elhadjel, Msaad, Boussaada, Elkantara, M'sila and M'doukel. Study focus: This study focused on creating a novel hybrid VMD-ELM approach, established by combining the Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD) technique and the Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) algorithm as a preprocessing technique for predicting future droughts. The first 6 and 12-month SPI values 1, 2, and 3-month lead time values were estimated with the ELM algorithm. After that, meteorological variables and Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) values, divided into subcomponents with VMD, are presented to the ELM model, and a drought forecasting model is developed. Model performances were evaluated according to various visual and statistical criteria. New hydrological insights for the region: Soft computing techniques have become the preferred method for producing predictions due to their ability to minimize development time, require minimal input, and offer a relatively less complex approach when compared to dynamic or physical models. As a result of the analysis, it has been determined that the highest prediction accuracies are generally obtained in VMD-ELM models and SPI predictions with a 1-month lead time. The study outputs give important ideas to mite donors regarding water resource planning and climate change adaptation strategies in the study area and can be applied to other arid and semi-arid environments.

Ladouali, Sabrina; Katipoğlu, Okan Mert; Bahrami, Mehdi; Kartal, Veysi; Sakaa, Bachir; Elshaboury, Nehal; Keblouti, Mehdi; Chaffai, Hicham; Salem, Ali; Pande, Chaitanya B.

The authors regret the need to issue this corrigendum to acknowledge the change in author name and address for correspondence. 1- The author's name “Salem Ali” should be “Ali Salem” 2- Corresponding author at: Structural Diagnostics and Analysis Research Group, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Pécs, Hungary We thank the journal for accommodating this update. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Elbeltagi, Ahmed; Heddam, Salim; Katipoğlu, Okan Mert; Alsumaiei, Abdullah A.; Al-Mukhtar, Mustafa

Study region: Chengdu, Wuhan, Chongqing, and Kunming regions in China. Study focus: Accurate estimation of crop water use or actual evapotranspiration (AET) remains a key obstacle in the effective design of irrigation schedules, plans, and design. This is due to the non-linear nature of this phenomenon. To address this issue and guarantee more accurate ET predictions, this study attempts the following: i) to assess the performance of five machine learning (ML) models optimized by the RReliefF algorithm in estimating actual ET values for each month in four Chinese provinces under various agroclimatic conditions; and ii) to select the optimal model based on statistical metrics while minimizing discrepancies between the estimated and actual ET values. AET was estimated using support vector machine (SVM), ensemble bagged and boosted trees, robust linear regression (RLR), and Matern 5/2 Gaussian process regression (M-GPR) models. New hydrological insights for the region: The M-GPR model outperformed the other models and generated the best values for all statistical measures for training and testing stages: R2 (0.979, 0.982), RMSE (5.56, 5.09), MAE (3.29,3.16). In comparison, the RLR model exhibited the lowest training and testing performances metrics. The results of this study demonstrate the capacity of the M-GPR model to accurately predict long-term AET values. This model is best suited for further research on AET prediction at the stations under investigation, which could improve irrigation and boost agricultural productivity.