Omolbani Mohamad Rezapour - University Putra Malaysia
Amir Ahmad Dehghani - Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources
Lee Teang Shui - Faculty of Engineering University Putra Malaysia

Suspended sediment rate estimation in rivers is very important for water resources projects. Since continues measurement is very expensive and can not be conducted for all river gauge stations, many sediment transport equations have been developed to determine its rate. However, sediment transport equations do not agree with each other and require many detailed data. Ant colony optimization (ACO) are now being used more frequently to solve optimization problems rather than those for which they were originally developed. The main purpose of this study is to application of ACO to identify the relation between sediment load and streamflow discharge for Nodeh station at Gorgan river in Iran. Numerical data are presented to compare ACO with sediment rating curve (SRC). The ACO model is found to be much better than the SRC model. The results also indicate that the ACO model may provide better performance than the SRC in the estimation of suspended sediment load.

suspended sediment load modeling, Ant Colony Optimization(ACO), sediment rating curve, Gorgan River