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Frequency Curves for Annual Flood Series with Some Zero Events or Incomplete Data
Author(s) -
Jennings M. E.,
Benson M. A.
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/wr005i001p00276
Subject(s) - flood myth , series (stratigraphy) , mathematics , logarithm , zero (linguistics) , conditional probability , statistics , probability distribution , data set , conditional probability distribution , transformation (genetics) , usable , mathematical analysis , computer science , geography , geology , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , biochemistry , chemistry , world wide web , gene
In fitting a theoretical frequency distribution to a set of data, a problem arises if the series contains a number of zero values, as may occur in annual flood peak data for small, arid‐region streams. The problem is twofold: first, commonly used distributions do not fit such a set of data; second, if a logarithmic transformation of the data is being used, logarithms of zero flows are not usable in a computation. To overcome the difficulties, a theorem of conditional probability is used. The probability of occurrence of a nonzero peak is combined with the conditional probability of exceeding a given flood magnitude, given that a nonzero peak has occurred. The method has been found useful also for fitting flood series in which information of peak annual floods below a specific stage is lacking.