Abstract

Multiple segmented rating curves have been proposed to better capture the variability of the physical and hydraulic characteristics of river-floodplain systems. We evaluate the accuracy of one- and two-segmented rating curves by exploiting a large and unique database of direct measurements of stage and discharge data in more than 200 Swedish catchments. Such a comparison is made by explicitly accounting for the potential impact of measurement uncertainty. This study shows that two-segmented rating curves did not fit the data significantly better, nor did they generate fewer errors than one-segmented rating curves. Two-segmented rating curves were found to be slightly beneficial for low flow when there were strong indications of segmentation, but predicted the rating relationship worse in cases of weak indication of segmentation. Other factors were found to have a larger impact on rating curve errors, such as the uncertainty of the discharge measurements and the type of regression method.

Keywords

rating curve; river discharge; gauging station; uncertainty; overfitting; validation

Published in

Hydrological Sciences Journal
2017, Volume: 62, number: 13, pages: 2072-2082

UKÄ Subject classification

Oceanography, Hydrology, Water Resources


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2017.1367397

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/86061