A windows-based program to derive design rainfall temporal patterns for design flood estimation

Design flood estimation is often required in engineering practice such as design of hydrologic structures, flood plain management, river ecological studies and flood insurance studies. The national guideline for design flood estimation in Australia known as Australian Rainfall and Runoff (ARR) recommends the Design Event Approach as the preferred method of rainfall-based design flood estimation technique (I. E. Aust., 1987, 1997). This method requires formulation of a design rainfall event and use of a runoff routing model to convert the design rainfall event into the corresponding design streamflow event. A design rainfall event is specified by a rainfall duration, average rainfall intensity of a particular average recurrence interval (ARI) and rainfall temporal pattern. A rainfall temporal pattern gives the proportion of total rainfall in different periods within a given rainfall duration. This paper focuses on the design rainfall temporal patterns.