Regional Flood Frequency Analysis Using L-Moments for North Brahmaputra Region of India
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VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 10, Issue 1
Abstract
Data of 13 stream flow gauging sites of the North Brahmaputra region of India are screened using the discordancy measure and homogeneity of the region is then tested employing the L-moments based heterogeneity measure . For computing heterogeneity measure , 500 simulations are performed using the Kappa distribution. Based on this test, it is observed that the data of 10 out of 13 gauging sites constitute a homogeneous region. Comparative regional flood frequency analysis studies are conducted employing the L-moments based commonly used frequency distributions. Based on the L-moment ratio diagram and -statistic criteria, general extreme value (GEV) distribution is identified as the robust distribution for the study area. Regional flood frequency relationships are developed for estimation of floods of various return periods for gauged and ungauged catchments using the L-moment based GEV distribution and a regional relationship between mean annual peak flood and catchment area. Flood frequency estimates of gauged and ungauged catchments are compared; when, without meeting the criteria of regional homogeneity, data of all 13 gauging sites are used instead of data of only 10 gauging sites constituting the homogeneous region.
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Acknowledgment
Help received from Dr. J. R. M. Hosking, IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center is thankfully acknowledged.
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© 2005 ASCE.
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Received: Jan 22, 2003
Accepted: Mar 7, 2004
Published online: Jan 1, 2005
Published in print: Jan 2005
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