Engineering

HYDROLOGY

Statistical method

Okedi John
Statistics - overview
 Flood flow prediction procedure – statistical method
➢ Plot time series and extract annual maxima (or peak over threshold i.e. POT)
River Flow
20,0

15,0
River flow (m3/s)

10,0

5,0

0,0
1997/01/01 1998/01/01 1999/01/01 2000/01/01 2000/12/31 2001/12/31
Exceedance probability and Return period
Rank data from largest to smallest and assign rank numbers – flood study
Rank data from smallest to largest and assign rank numbers – drought study

Year Flows Rank After ranking, determine

➢ Exceedance probability
1998 19.5 1
➢ Return period
2001 15.1 2
1999 14.5 3 1
P=
𝑇
2000 13.2 4 Where P – exceedance probability
1997 9.1 5 T – return period
➢ Select method for calculating return period – plotting position

n + a
T=
m − b

Where
T - Return period (T) in years – average period during which an event (e.g. peak flow) repeats or exceeds itself.
n – length of record in years
m – rank number of the annual peak flood
a and b - constants
 Plotting positions - graph

River flow (m3/s)

Return period (years)

Plotting positions - discussion
P(X ≥ x) P(X ≤ x) P(X ≥ x) = 1 - P(X ≤ x)
Probability of Probability of Non-
Rank Exceedance Exceedance

1ൗ 𝑛Τ 𝑚 (𝑛 − 𝑚 + 1)
1 𝑛 𝑛 =1−
𝑛 𝑛
2 2ൗ (𝑛 − 1)ൗ
𝑛 𝑛
𝑛 𝑚 1
3 3ൗ
𝑛 (𝑛 − 2)ൗ =1− + −
𝑛 𝑛 𝑛 𝑛
. . .
𝑚−1
m 𝑚Τ
𝑛 (𝑛 − 𝑚 + 1)ൗ =
𝑛 𝑛
n 𝑛Τ
𝑛 1ൗ 𝑚 − 0.5
𝑛 𝐻𝑎𝑧𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑎 =
𝑛
➢ Statistical distribution of data – Projection to higher recurrence intervals
EXAMPLE
From a flow record of 69 years selected using the annual maxima, the ten highest values are:

360 304 294 264 294 258 246 244 244 239

Using the Gringorten method, determine the 10, 100 and 1000 years reccurence precipitation
Solution
1000
n 69 Measured
a 0.12 Projection
b 0.44

Flow (m3/s)
Flow (m3/s) Rank Return period (T)
360 1 123
306 2 44 y = 43,457ln(x) + 144,89
294 3 27
264 4 19
258 5 15
246 6 12
244 7 11
244 8 9
243 9 8
239 10 7 100
1 10 100 1000
Return period (years)