III: Small: Collaborative Research: Study of Neural Architectural Components in Physics-Informed Deep Neural Networks for Extreme Flood Prediction

了解我们的物理世界对人类社会显然是至关重要的，也是有益的，几个世纪以来，这已经成为许多科学和工程领域的中心焦点和挑战。该项目将开发基于机器学习的技术来模拟复杂的大气系统(从天气到气候)。大气系统模型可以近似大气流动并预测包括洪水在内的极端降水事件序列。洪水是世界上最致命和代价最高的自然灾害之一。灾难性洪水造成的不断增加的损失正在推动人们加紧努力，通过提供早期预警来加强准备和改善对灾难性洪水事件的反应。该项目的调查结果将帮助决策者更好地确定特定政策行动的必要性和结果。例如，洪水预报的10-15天提前期将允许水库调度规则的执行方式发生重大变化，以将洪水事件的影响降至最低。此外，该项目将为本科生和研究生提供宝贵的研究和培训机会，鼓励少数民族和妇女参与科学和工程，并对计算机科学课程和课件开发产生广泛和可持续的影响。许多物理系统可以用一组控制偏微分方程组来描述。然而，这些基本的控制偏微分方程组往往是耦合的和非线性的，没有易于处理的解析解，并且需要对初始和边界条件高度敏感的数值近似。这个项目综合了当前对物理系统的理解和新的神经体系结构，以开发能够改进复杂物理系统模型的解释、泛化和预测的深层神经网络模型。为了实现这一目标，本项目集中于三个相互关联的研究活动：(1)开发神经结构组件库以构建模块化神经网络模型；(2)测试基于神经结构组件的深度学习方法用于洪水预测；以及(3)建立受物理启发的深度学习模型，以更好地解释和预测。这个项目研究了一种开发和使用基本神经结构组件来构建大型物理信息深度神经网络的新方法。基于模块化的神经结构研究方法对于提高深度学习模型的理解和解释能力至关重要，在多个科学领域有着广泛的应用。从科学的角度来看，它将提供一个新的基准，通过结合基于偏微分方程的数值天气预报模型的优点和深度学习的最新进展，使用神经结构组件来构建物理信息的深层神经网络模型，并量化一类降水和洪水事件的可预测极限。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Understanding our physical world is clearly critical and beneficial to human society, which has become a central focus and challenge in many areas of science and engineering for centuries. This project will develop machine learning-based techniques to model complex atmospheric systems (from weather to climate). Atmospheric system models can approximate atmospheric flow and predict sequence of extreme precipitation events including flooding. Flooding is one the most deadly and costly natural hazards in the world. Mounting losses from catastrophic floods are driving an intense effort to increase preparedness and improve response to disastrous flood events by providing early warnings. Findings in this project will help decision makers better determine the need for and outcomes of particular policy actions. For example, a 10-15 day lead time in flood prediction will allow significant changes in the way reservoir operation rules are executed to minimize the impact of flood events. Moreover, this project will provide undergraduate and graduate students with valuable research and training opportunities, encourage minority and woman participation in science and engineering, and have a broad and sustainable impact on Computer Science curricula and courseware development. Many physical systems can be described by a set of governing partial differential equations. However, these underlying governing partial differential equations are often coupled and nonlinear, do not have tractable analytical solutions, and need numerical approximations that are highly sensitive to initial and boundary conditions. This project synthesizes current understanding of physical systems with novel neural architectures to develop deep neural network models that can improve interpretation, generalization and prediction of complex physical system models. To achieve this goal, this project focuses on three interrelated research activities: (1) developing a library of neural architectural components to build modular neural network models; (2) testing neural architectural component based deep learning approach for flood prediction; and (3) building physics inspired deep learning models for better interpretation and prediction. This project investigates a new approach of developing and using basic neural architectural components to build large physics-informed deep neural networks. The modularity-based approach on study of neural architectures is critically important to enhance understanding and interpretability of deep learning models and has broad applications in multiple scientific domains. From scientific perspective, it will provide a new benchmark on the efficacy of using neural architectural components to build physics-informed deep neural network models and quantify achievable predictability limits for a class of precipitation and flood events by combining strengths of partial differential equation based numerical weather prediction models and recent advances in deep learning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.