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USE OF HISTORIC FLOOD INFORMATION IN ESTIMATING FLOOD PEAKS ON UNGAGED WATERSHEDS 1
Author(s) -
Wall D. J.,
Kibler D. F.,
Hastings M. E.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-1688.1987.tb02971.x
Subject(s) - flood myth , hydrology (agriculture) , watershed , environmental science , weighting , base flow , variance (accounting) , statistics , mathematics , geography , geology , drainage basin , cartography , computer science , medicine , geotechnical engineering , archaeology , accounting , machine learning , business , radiology
Regional procedures to estimate flood magnitudes for ungaged watersheds typically ignore available site‐specific historic flood information such as high water marks and the corresponding flow estimates, otherwise referred to as limited site‐specific historic (LSSH) flood data. A procedure to construct flood frequency curves on the basis of LSSH flood observations is presented. Simple inverse variance weighting is employed to systematically combine flood estimates obtained from the LSSH data base with those from a regional procedure to obtain improved estimtes of flood peaks on the ungaged watershed. For the region studied, the variance weighted estimates of flow had a lower logarithmic standard error than either the regional or the LSSH flow estimates, when compared to the estimates determined by three standard distributions for gaged watersheds investigated in the development of the methodology. Use of the simple inverse variance weighting procedure is recommended when “reliable” estimates of LSSH floods for the ungaged site are available.