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Statistics
Given the initial measured values , final observed or measured values and final calculated values ,
there are several goodness-of-fit statistics which can be calculated. The definition for some of the more common
ones are provided below.

Contents
1 Dimensional Statistics
1.1 Mean Error
1.2 Mean-Absolute Error
1.3 Root-Mean-Squared Error
1.4 Standard Deviation of Residuals
1.5 Normalization
2 Nondimensional Statistics
2.1 Performance Scores
2.2 Index of Agreement
2.3 Correlation Coefficient
3 References
4 Symbols

Dimensional Statistics
Mean Error
The mean error (ME), also referred to as bias (B) is given by

(1)

Smaller absolute ME values indicate better agreement between measured and calculated values. Positive values
indicate positively biased computed values (overprediction) while negative values indicate negatively biased
computed values (underprediction).

Example Matlab code:

ME = mean(xc(:)-xm(:));

Mean-Absolute Error
The mean absolute error is given by

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(2)

Similarly to the RMSE, smaller MAE values indicate better agreement between measured and calculated values.

Example Matlab code:

MAE = mean(abs(xc(:)-xm(:)));

Root-Mean-Squared Error
The Root-Mean-Squared Error (RMSE) also referred to as Root-Mean-Squared Deviation (RMSD) is defined as

(3)

The RMSE has the same units as the measured and calculated data. Smaller values indicate better agreement
between measured and calculated values.

Example Matlab Code:

RMSE = sqrt(mean((xc(:)-xm(:)).^2));

Standard Deviation of Residuals

The standard deviation of residuals (SDR) is calculated as

(4)

SDR is a measure of the dynamical correspondence. Smaller values indicate better agreement. The RMSE, ME,
STD are related by the following formula

(5)

Example Matlab Code:

SDR= sqrt(mean((xc(:)-xm(:)-mean(xc(:))+mean(xm(:))).^2));

Normalization
The dimensional statistics above, namely RMSE, MAE, and B; can be normalized to produce a nondimensional
statistic. When the variable is normalized the statistic is commonly prefixed by a letter N for normalized or R for
relative (e.g. NRMSE, EMAE, and NB). This also has facilitates the comparison between different datasets or
models which have different scales. For example, when comparing models to laboratory data the dimensional

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statistics will produce relatively smaller dimensional goodness-of-fit statistics compared to field data
comparisons. One drawback of normalization is that there is no consistent means of normalization. Different
types of data or normalized differently literature. For example, water levels are commonly normalized by the
tidal range, while wave heights may be normalized by the offshore wave height. In some cases, the range of the
measured data is a good choice. The range is defined as the maximum value minus the minimum value.

(6)

Another common approach to nomralization is to use the mean value of the measurements

(7)

When the RMS value is normalized by the mean measured value, is sometimes referred to as the scatter index
(SI) (Zambresky 1989). When the RMS value is normalized by a specific measured value used to drive a model,
it is sometimes referred to as the Operational Performance Index (OPI) (Ris et al. 1999). The OPI can be used
for example to give an estimate of the performance of a nearshore wave height transformation model based on
the offshore measured wave height.

More important than the choice of normalization variable is to properly describe how the statistics have been
normalized.

Nondimensional Statistics
Performance Scores
There are several goodness-of-fit statitics in literature of the form

(8)

where is a reference value(s). When the reference value is equal to the base or initial measurements
, then the Peformance Score is referred to as the Brier Skill Score (BSS) or Brier Skill Index (BSI).
When the reference value is equal to the mean measured value , then the Performance Score is
referred to the Nash-Sutcliffe Coefficient (E) or Nash-Sutcliffe Score (ES) (Nash and Sutcliffe 1970). When the
reference value is a specific measured value such as a model forcing value, then it is referred to as the Model
Performance Index (MPI) or Model Performance Score (MPS).

The various performance scores ranges between negative infinity and one. A performance score of 1 indicates a
perfect agreement between measured and calculated values. Scores equal to or less than 0 indicates that the
initial value is as or more accurate than the calculated values. Recommended qualifications for different BSS
ranges are provided in Table 1.

Table 1. Performance Score Qualifications

Range Qualification

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0.8<PS<1.0 Excellent
0.6<PS<0.8 Good
0.3<PS<0.6 Reasonable
0<PS<0.3 Poor
PS<0 Bad

Example Matlab Code:

BSS = 1 - mean((xc(:)-xm(:)).^2)/mean((xm(:)-x0(:)).^2);
ES = 1 - mean((xc(:)-xm(:)).^2)/mean((xm(:)-mean(xm(:))).^2);
MPS = 1 - mean((xc(:)-xm(:)).^2)/mean((xm(:)-xR).^2);

Index of Agreement
The index of agreement (IA or d) is given by (Willmott et al. 1985)

(9)

The denominator in the above equation is referred to as the potential error. IA is a nondimensional and bounded
measure with values closer to 1 indicating better agreement.

Example Matlab code:

IA = 1 - mean((xc(:)-xm(:)).^2)/max(mean((abs(xc(:)-mean(xm(:)))+abs(xm(:)-mean(xm(:)))).^2),eps)

Correlation Coefficient
The correlation is a measure of the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two variables. The
correlation coefficient is defined as

(10)

A correlation of 1 indicates a perfect one-to-one linear relationship and -1 indicates a negative relationship. The
square of the correlation coefficient describes how much of the variance between two variables is described by a
linear fit.

Example Matlab code:

R = corrcoef(yc,ym);

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References
Nash, J.E., and Sutcliffe, J.V. 1970. River flow forecasting through conceptual models part I — A
discussion of principles, Journal of Hydrology, 10(3), 282–290.

Ris, R.C., Holthuijsen, L.H., and Booij, N. 1999. A third-generation wave model for coastal regions 2,
verification. Journal of Geophysical Research, 104(C4) 7667-7681.

Willmott, C.J., Ackleson, S.G., Davis, R.E., Feddema, J.J., Klink, K.M., Legates, D.R., O’Donnell, J., and
Rowe, C.M. 1985. Statistics for the evaluation and comparison of models, Journal of Geophysical
Research, 90(C5), 8995–9005.

Zambreskey, L., 1988. A verification study of the global WAM model, December 1987 – November 1988.
GKSS Forschungzentrum Geesthacht GMBH Report GKSS 89/E/37.

Symbols
A description of all the symbols in the equations above is provided in Table 3.

Table 3. Description of symbols

Symbol Description
Measured values
Calculated values
Initial measured values
Normalization value
Expectation (averaging) operator

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This page was last edited on 5 June 2014, at 19:48.

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