Scaling property of regional floods in New South Wales Australia

Elias Ishak, Khaled Haddad, Mohammad Zaman, Ataur Rahman

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    35 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Regional flood frequency analysis (RFFA) is often used in hydrology to estimate flood quantiles when there is a limitation of at-site recorded flood data. One of the commonly used RFFA methods is the index flood method, which is based on the assumptions that a region satisfies criterion of simple scaling and it can be treated homogeneous. Another RFFA method is quantile regression technique where prediction equations are developed for flood quantiles of interest as function of catchment characteristics. In this paper, the scaling property of regional floods in New South Wales (NSW) State in Australia is investigated. The results indicate that the annual maximum floods in NSW satisfy a simple scaling assumption. The application of a heterogeneity test, however, reveals that NSW flood data set does not satisfy the criteria for a homogeneous region. Finally, a set of prediction equations are developed for NSW using quantile regression technique; an independent test shows that these equations can provide reasonably accurate design flood estimates with a median relative error of about 27%.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1155-1167
    Number of pages13
    JournalNatural Hazards
    Volume58
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2011

    Keywords

    • Australia
    • New South Wales
    • design floods
    • error analysis
    • floods
    • hydrologic models
    • mathematical models
    • regional flood frequency analysis

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