Design Rainfall Framework Using Multivariate Parametric-Nonparametric Approach
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 21, Issue 1
Abstract
Design rainfall time series are a critical input for urban flood modeling and require depth-duration-frequency curves along with a design temporal pattern. The association between rainfall depth and duration, which depicts the inherent structure of rainfall patterns, plays an important role in flood-causing potential; this association can be revealed through a bivariate rainfall frequency analysis to obtain the depth-duration-frequency curves. Unlike earlier approaches that use either parametric or nonparametric models, the present study proposes a new semiparametric model approach, which can evaluate all possible combinations of the parametric-nonparametric marginals without restrictions. A comparison between the copula-based bivariate frequency analysis and the generalized least-squares regression shows the former to be better in performance. The first three best-fit models—Gaussian kernel, triangle kernel, and Burr type XII combined with the generalized Pareto distribution—yield consistently similar results, indicating the robustness of the approach. Realistic design rainfall temporal pattern could also be derived from the observed set of temporal patterns using their skew, kurtosis, and bimodality measure to quantify the maximum flood-causing potential and also to generate the design rainfall time series. The proposed framework has been demonstrated for a severely flood-prone coastal megacity, Mumbai, in India.
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Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the administrative and financial support provided by the IITB-Monash Research Academy and Tata Consultancy Services, and the funding support by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Project Ref. No. MoES/PAMC/H&C/36/2013-PC-II. Also, we sincerely thank the editors, associate editors, and anonymous reviewers for their valuable review comments that have improved this manuscript substantially.
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 21 • Issue 1 • January 2016
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© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 5, 2014
Accepted: Apr 24, 2015
Published online: Jun 17, 2015
Discussion open until: Nov 17, 2015
Published in print: Jan 1, 2016
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