Predicting Chlorophyll-a Concentrations in the World’s Largest Lakes Using Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks

Accurate prediction of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentrations, a key indicator of eutrophication, is essential for the sustainable management of lake ecosystems. This study evaluated the performance of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) along with three neural network models (MLP-NN, LSTM, and GRU) and three traditional machine learning tools (RF, SVR, and GPR) for predicting time-series Chl-a concentrations in large lakes. Monthly remote-sensed Chl-a data derived from Aqua-MODIS spanning September 2002 to April 2024 were used. The models were evaluated based on their forecasting capabilities from March 2024 to August 2024. KAN consistently outperformed others in both test and forecast (unseen data) phases and demonstrated superior accuracy in capturing trends, dynamic fluctuations, and peak Chl-a concentrations. Statistical evaluation using ranking metrics and critical difference diagrams confirmed KAN’s robust performance across diverse study sites, further emphasizing its predictive power. Our findings suggest that the KAN, which leverages the KA representation theorem, offers improved handling of nonlinearity and long-term dependencies in time-series Chl-a data, outperforming neural network models grounded in the universal approximation theorem and traditional machine learning algorithms.