Articles | Volume 29, issue 21
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5871-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-5871-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Unveiling the limits of deep learning models in hydrological extrapolation tasks
Institute of Water and Environment, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany
Daniel Klotz
Interdisciplinary Transformation University Austria, Linz, Austria
Google Research, Vienna, Austria
Eduardo Acuña Espinoza
Institute of Water and Environment, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany
Andras Bardossy
Institut für Wasser- und Umweltsystemmodellierung, Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
Ralf Loritz
Institute of Water and Environment, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany
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Saved (final revised paper)
Latest update: 22 Aug 2026
Short summary
This study evaluates the extrapolation performance of long short-term memory (LSTM) networks in rainfall–runoff modeling, specifically under extreme precipitation conditions. The findings reveal that the LSTM cannot predict discharge values beyond a theoretical limit and that this limit is well below the extremity of its training data. This behavior results from the LSTM's gating structures rather than saturation of the cell states alone.
This study evaluates the extrapolation performance of long short-term memory (LSTM) networks in...