Scaling property of regional floods in New South Wales Australia

Abstract

Regional flood frequency analysis (RFFA) is often used in hydrology to estimate flood quantiles when there is a limitation of at-site recorded flood data. One of the commonly used RFFA methods is the index flood method, which is based on the assumptions that a region satisfies criterion of simple scaling and it can be treated homogeneous. Another RFFA method is quantile regression technique where prediction equations are developed for flood quantiles of interest as function of catchment characteristics. In this paper, the scaling property of regional floods in New South Wales (NSW) State in Australia is investigated. The results indicate that the annual maximum floods in NSW satisfy a simple scaling assumption. The application of a heterogeneity test, however, reveals that NSW flood data set does not satisfy the criteria for a homogeneous region. Finally, a set of prediction equations are developed for NSW using quantile regression technique; an independent test shows that these equations can provide reasonably accurate design flood estimates with a median relative error of about 27%.