Decadal Analysis of River Flow Extremes Using Quantile-Based Approaches

Abstract

Next to the traditional analysis of trends in time series of hydro-climatological variables, analysis of decadal oscillations in these variables is of particular importance for the risk assessment of hydro-climatological disasters and risk-based decision-making. Conventional parametric and nonparametric tests, however, need implementing a set of background assumptions related to serial structure and statistical distribution of data. They neither focus on the extreme events and their probability of occurrence. In order to get rid of these limitations, we suggest a modified version of the Sen Method (SM), combined with the Quantile Perturbation Method (QPM) for examining temporal variation of extreme hydrological events. The developed method is tested for decadal analysis of monthly and annual river flows at 10 hydrometric stations in the Qazvin plain in Iran. The results show oscillatory patterns in extreme river flow quantiles, with a positive anomaly during the 1990s and a negative one during the 2000s. It is also shown that the concurrent use of the two methods allows to set a complete picture on the temporal changes in high and low extremes in historical river flow observations in different seasons.