Bias compensation in flood frequency analysis

Abstract

Flood frequency analysis (FFA) is essential for water resources management. Long flow records improve the precision of estimated quantiles; however, in some cases, sample size in one location is not sufficient to achieve a reliable estimate of the statistical parameters and thus, regional FFA is commonly used to decrease the uncertainty in the prediction. In this paper, the bias of several commonly used parameter estimators, including L-moment, probability weighted moment and maximum likelihood estimation, applied to the general extreme value (GEV) distribution is evaluated using a Monte Carlo simulation. Two bias compensation approaches: compensation based on the shape parameter, and compensation using three GEV parameters, are proposed based on the analysis and the models are then applied to streamflow records in southern Alberta. Compensation efficiency varies among estimators and between compensation approaches. The results overall suggest that compensation of the bias due to the estimator and short sample size would significantly improve the accuracy of the quantile estimation. In addition, at-site FFA is able to provide reliable estimation based on short data, when accounting for the bias in the estimator appropriately.Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor Sheng Yue