Research article2018Peer reviewed
Synthetic design hydrographs for ungauged catchments: a comparison of regionalization methods
Brunner, Manuela I.; Furrer, Reinhard; Sikorska, Anna E.; Viviroli, Daniel; Seibert, Jan; Favre, Anne-Catherine
Abstract
Design flood estimates for a given return period are required in both gauged and ungauged catchments for hydraulic design and risk assessments. Contrary to classical design estimates, synthetic design hydrographs provide not only information on the peak magnitude of events but also on the corresponding hydrograph volumes together with the hydrograph shapes. In this study, we tested different regionalization approaches to transfer parameters of synthetic design hydrographs from gauged to ungauged catchments. These approaches include classical regionalization methods such as linear regression techniques, spatial methods, and methods based on the formation of homogeneous regions. In addition to these classical approaches, we tested nonlinear regression models not commonly used in hydrological regionalization studies, such as random forest, bagging, and boosting. We found that parameters related to the magnitude of the design event can be regionalized well using both linear and nonlinear regression techniques using catchment area, length of the main channel, maximum precipitation intensity, and relief energy as explanatory variables. The hydrograph shape, however, was found to be more difficult to regionalize due to its high variability within a catchment. Such variability might be better represented by looking at flood-type specific synthetic design hydrographs.
Keywords
Regionalization; Ungauged catchments; Design hydrographs; Flood estimation; Regression trees
Published in
Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment
2018, Volume: 32, number: 7, pages: 1993-2023 Publisher: SPRINGER
UKÄ Subject classification
Oceanography, Hydrology, Water Resources
Publication identifier
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-018-1523-3
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/98699