Applied Sciences

As is well known, machine learning (ML) is one of the main branches of artificial intelligence (AI). Its primary objective is to use computational methods to extract information from data. Machine learning has a wide spectrum of practical applications. After the first applications concerning topics such as recognition of manual writing, detection of objects in image processing, voice recognition, medical diagnoses, DNA classification, search engines, and stock market analysis, in recent years machine learning algorithms have been increasingly used in environmental sciences due to their high capability for modelling non-linear phenomena. In particular, these algorithms are already widely used in weather and climate forecasts, as well as in the analysis and modelling of hydrological, ecological, and oceanographic data.