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Jan 1, 2005

Regional Flood Frequency Analysis Using L-Moments for North Brahmaputra Region of India

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Publication: 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 (Di) and homogeneity of the region is then tested employing the L-moments based heterogeneity measure (H) . For computing heterogeneity measure H , 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 Zidist -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.

References

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Go to Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 10Issue 1January 2005
Pages: 1 - 7

History

Received: Jan 22, 2003
Accepted: Mar 7, 2004
Published online: Jan 1, 2005
Published in print: Jan 2005

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Authors

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Rakesh Kumar [email protected]
Scientist, National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee-247 667, India. E-mail: [email protected]
Chandranath Chatterjee
Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Food Engineering Dept., Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721 302, India.

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