Statistical Properties of Partial Duration Series: Case Study of North Island, New Zealand
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19, Issue 4
Abstract
The partial duration series (PDS) model is preferable for hydrological frequency analysis when dealing with values exceeding a certain threshold, and the model is capable of capturing more information about extreme events than the rival annual maximum series (AMS) model. However, the use of PDS in hydrological application encounters the difficulty of determining the exceedance threshold attributable to physical and statistical complexity. An inverse relationship exists between the threshold value and the number of peaks selected above a threshold, and a fixed number of average peaks per year is an option to define the threshold value. Additionally, a PDS is generated under the assumption that the series is best described by a generalized Pareto (GP) distribution. To date, the question arises as to how many peaks should be appropriate for modeling the PDS. This paper investigates the optimum number of peaks for integer values on the basis of the variability of the GP/PDS parameters with an increase in the number of peaks. This paper uses daily rainfall data from 36 stations across the North Island region of New Zealand, with record length varying between 31 and 105 years.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like express their thanks to the editor, Dr. Govindaraju, R. S., and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments that significantly improved the quality of this paper.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19 • Issue 4 • April 2014
Pages: 807 - 815
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 21, 2012
Accepted: May 6, 2013
Published online: May 8, 2013
Discussion open until: Oct 8, 2013
Published in print: Apr 1, 2014
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