This paper describes a formal statistical model underlying the region-of-influence method routinely used in regional frequency analysis of hydrological extremes, and is an improvement to the existing Flood Estimation Handbook (FEH) method for pooled frequency analysis of annual maximum flows in the UK. Specification of a pooling-group method requires three issues to be resolved: how to define hydrological similarity, the size of pooling groups and calculation of the pooled L-moment ratios. Because these issues are interrelated, an exploratory and iterative study has been undertaken before arriving at the final version of the method. Improvements provided by the model are: (1) that it allows an increased weight to be given to a gauged catchment when it is itself the target location and (2) it does not require identification of a homogeneous region, since the expected differences between the L-moment ratios within a pooling group are explicitly accounted for. Using annual maximum series from 602 gauged rural catchments, a comparison of candidate methods shows that the new method performs better than these others, including the FEH method. While the numerical comparison suggests that the improvement is 4%, and thus only minor, arguments are given for why this is a misleading conclusion.
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Research Article|
October 01 2009
A formal statistical model for pooled analysis of extreme floods
Thomas R. Kjeldsen;
1Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK
E-mail: [email protected]
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David A. Jones
David A. Jones
1Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK
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Hydrology Research (2009) 40 (5): 465–480.
Article history
Received:
July 03 2008
Accepted:
February 24 2009
Citation
Thomas R. Kjeldsen, David A. Jones; A formal statistical model for pooled analysis of extreme floods. Hydrology Research 1 October 2009; 40 (5): 465–480. doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2009.055
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