Extreme environmental events, such as floods, droughts, rainstorms, and high winds, have severe consequences for human society. Regional frequency analysis helps to solve the problem of estimating the frequency of these rare events at one site by using data from several sites. This book is the first complete account of the L-moment approach to regional frequency analysis. Regional Frequency Analysis comprehensively describes the theoretical background to the subject, is rich in practical advice for users, and contains detailed examples that illustrate the approach. This book will be of great value to hydrologists, atmospheric scientists and civil engineers, concerned with environmental extremes.
This textbook covers the main applications of statistical methods in hydrology. It is written for upper undergraduate and graduate students but can be used as a helpful guide for hydrologists, geographers, meteorologists and engineers. The book is very useful for teaching, as it covers the main topics of the subject and contains many worked out examples and proposed exercises. Starting from simple notions of the essential graphical examination of hydrological data, the book gives a complete account of the role that probability considerations must play during modelling, diagnosis of model fit, prediction and evaluating the uncertainty in model predictions, including the essence of Bayesian application in hydrology and statistical methods under nonstationarity. The book also offers a comprehensive and useful discussion on subjective topics, such as the selection of probability distributions suitable for hydrological variables. On a practical level, it explains MS Excel charting and computing capabilities, demonstrates the use of Winbugs free software to solve Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) simulations, and gives examples of free R code to solve nonstationary models with nonlinear link functions with climate covariates.
Floods constitute a persistent and serious problem throughout the United States and many other parts of the world. They are responsible for losses amounting to billions of dollars and scores of deaths annually. Virtually all parts of the nation--coastal, moun tainous and rural--are affected by them. Two aspects of the problem of flooding that have long been topics of scientific inquiry are flood frequency and risk analyses. Many new, even improved, tech niques have recently been developed for performing these analyses. Nevertheless, actual experience points out that the frequency of say a 100-year flood, in lieu of being encountered on the average once in one hundred years, may be as little as once in 25 years. It is therefore appropriate to pause and ask where we are, where we are going and where we ought to be going with regard to the technology of flood frequency and risk analyses. One way to address these ques tions is to provide a forum where people from all quarters of the world can assemble, discuss and share their experience and expertise pertaining to flood frequency and risk analyses. This is what con stituted the motivation for organizing the International Symposium on Flood Frequency and Risk Analyses held May 14-17, 1986, at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Clustering techniques are used to identify groups of watersheds which have similar flood characteristics. This book, the first of its kind, is a comprehensive reference on how to use these techniques for regional flood frequency analysis. It provides a detailed account of several recently developed clustering techniques, including those based on fuzzy set theory. It also brings together formerly scattered research findings on the application of clustering techniques to RFFA.
After five decades, the field of Statistical Hydrology continues to evolve and remains a very active area of investigation. Researchers continue to examine various distributions, methods of estimation of parameters, and problems related to regionalization. However, much of this research appears in journals and reports and usually in a form not easi