Forecasting weekly reference evapotranspiration using Auto Encoder Decoder Bidirectional LSTM model hybridized with a Boruta-CatBoost input optimizer

•A novel deep learning-based machine learning model is proposed for weekly evapotranspiration forecasting.•A new feature selection algorithm (Boruta-CatBoost) is applied to determine effective lags for time series forecasting.•Three different climatic conditions within Iranian region are investigate...

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