Regional Modeling of Long-Term and Annual Flow Duration Curves: Reliability for Information Transfer with Evolutionary Polynomial Regression
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 26, Issue 2
Abstract
The estimation of long-term flow duration curves (FDC) and annual flow duration curves (AFDC) are frequently required for water resources planning and management at ungauged catchments. The index flow framework provides a simple mathematical model for linking both approaches in regionalization procedures. However, the reliable transfer of information may be unfeasible with established regression techniques due to the complex structure of variation between the statistical model parameters and catchments’ characteristics. This paper explores the evolutionary polynomial regression (EPR) technique for identifying regional equations for the parameters of the index flow model. Results showed that, at the expense of increased structural complexity, EPR might be an effective and robust tool for transferring information to ungauged sites. Long-term streamflow variability was relatively well captured under cross-validation, although the low flow regimes were misrepresented in most cases. As for the AFDCs, the model proved able to synthesize flow regimes in typical and wet years but failed to do so in dry conditions. Despite these limitations, the proposed approach may constitute a useful tool for supporting water resources management at the regional scale.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support of this research from CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico), CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), and FAPEMIG (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais). The authors also wish to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers and editors for the valuable comments and suggestions, which helped improve the paper.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 26 • Issue 2 • February 2021
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 27, 2020
Accepted: Oct 23, 2020
Published online: Dec 11, 2020
Published in print: Feb 1, 2021
Discussion open until: May 11, 2021
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