Log-Pearson Type 3 Distribution and Its Application in Flood Frequency Analysis. I: Distribution Characteristics
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VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 12, Issue 5
Abstract
Since the adoption of the log-Pearson Type 3 (LP3) distribution by U.S. federal agencies, it has been widely used in hydrology, but its properties are not well understood. This paper explores the characteristics of the LP3 distribution in both real space and log space, and their relationship. Comparisons with U.S. flood data summaries reveal that the LP3 distribution provides a reasonable model of the distribution of annual flood series from unregulated watersheds for log space skews (though is more realistic), and for with standard deviations in the range 0.1 to 1.0 with base-e natural logarithms (0.04 to 0.43 with base-10 common logarithms). L-moment ratio relationships for the LP3 distribution are also developed so they can be compared to summary statistics for a region, and to several other distributions frequently recommended for modeling hydrometeorological extremes.
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Acknowledgments
The writers greatly acknowledge support provided by a Water Resources Institute Internship Award No. 02HQGR0128 by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior. Comments by Timothy Cohn and Chuck Kroll are gratefully acknowledged.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 12 • Issue 5 • September 2007
Pages: 482 - 491
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Jul 11, 2005
Accepted: Nov 11, 2006
Published online: Sep 1, 2007
Published in print: Sep 2007
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