Chapter 3-Frequency Analysis
Chapter 3-Frequency Analysis
Chapter 3-Frequency Analysis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3 Frequency Analysis..........................................................................................................2
3.1 General......................................................................................................................2
3.2 Flow Frequency........................................................................................................2
3.3 Flood Probability.....................................................................................................4
3.3.1 Selection of Data..............................................................................................4
3.3.2 Plotting Positions.............................................................................................5
3.3.3 Theoretical Distributions of Floods................................................................6
3.3.4 Extreme-Value Type I Distribution (Gumbel’s Method).............................7
3.3.5 Gumbel's Equation for Practical Use............................................................8
3.3.6 Confidence Limits for the fitted data...........................................................10
3.3.7 Log-Pearson Type III Distribution..............................................................11
3.4 Precipitation Probability.......................................................................................13
3.5 Low Flow Analysis.................................................................................................13
3.5.1 Definitions and Basic Concepts....................................................................13
3.5.2 Low flow frequency analysis.........................................................................14
3.5.3 Drought analysis............................................................................................15
3.6 Risk, Reliability and Safety factor.......................................................................17
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4. Frequency Analysis
4. General
Water resource systems must be planned for future events for which no exact time of
occurrence can be forecasted. Hence, the hydrologist must give a statement of the
probability of the stream flows (or other hydrologic factors) will equal or exceed (or be less
than) a specified value. These probabilities are important to the economic and social
evaluation of a project. In most cases, absolute control of the floods or droughts is
impossible. Planning to control a flood of a specific probability recognizes that a project will
be overtaxed occasionally and damages will be incurred. However, repair of the damages
should be less costly in the long run than building initially to protect against the worst
possible event. The planning goal is not to eliminate all floods but to reduce the frequency of
flooding, and hence the resulting damages. If the socio-economic analysis is to be correct,
the probability of flooding must be eliminated accurately. For major projects, the failure of
which seriously threatens human life, a more extreme event, the probable maximum flood,
has become the standard for designing the spillway.
This chapter deals with techniques for defining probability from a given set of data and with
special methods employed for determining design flood for major hydraulic structures.
Frequency analysis is the hydrologic term used to describe the probability of occurrence of a
particular hydrologic event (e.g. rainfall, flood, drought, etc.). Therefore, basic knowledge
about probability (e.g. distribution functions) and statistics (e.g. measure of location,
measure of spread, measure of skewness, etc) is essential. Frequency analysis usually
requires recorded hydrological data.
Hydrological data are recorded either as a continuous record (e.g. water level or stage,
rainfall, etc.) or in discrete series form (e.g. mean daily/monthly/annual flows or rainfall,
annual series, partial series, etc.).
For planning and designing of water resources development projects, the important
parameters are river discharges and related questions on the frequency & duration of
normal flows (e.g. for hydropower production or for water availability) and extreme flows
(floods and droughts).
Pp = m / (N+1) (3.1)
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The FDC only applies for the period for which it was derived. If this is a long period, say
more than 10 to 20 years, the FDC may be regarded as a probability curve or flow frequency
curve, which may be used to estimate the percentage of time that a specified discharge will
be equalled or exceeded in the future. An example is demonstrated in table 4.1 below.
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Qmean
Adequacy refers primarily to length of record, but sparisty of data collecting stations is
often a problem. The observed record is merely a sample of the total population of
floods that have occurred and may occur again. If the sample is too small, the
probabilities derived cannot be expected to be reliable. Available stream flow records
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are too short to provide an answer to the question: How long must a record be to define
flood probabilities within acceptable tolerances?
Accuracy refers primarily to the problem of homogeneity. Most flow records are
satisfactory in terms of intrinsic accuracy, and if they are not, there is little that can be
done with them. If the reported flows are unreliable, they are not a satisfactory basis for
frequency analysis. Even though reported flows are accurate, they may be unsuitable for
probability analysis if changes in the catchment have caused a change in the hydrologic
characteristics, i.e., if the record is not internally homogenous. Dams, levees, diversions,
urbanization, and other land use changes may introduce inconsistencies. Such records
should be adjusted before use to current conditions or to natural conditions. There are
two data series of floods:
(i) The annual series, and
(ii) The partial duration series.
The annual series constitutes the data series that the values of the single maximum
daily/monthly/annually discharge in each year of record so that the number of data
values equals the record length in years. For statistical purposes, it is necessary to
ensure that the selected peak discharges are independent of one another. This data
series is necessary if the analysis is concerned with probability less than 0.5. However
as the interest are limited to relatively rare events, the analysis could have been carried
out for a partial duration series to have more frequent events.
.
The partial duration series constitutes the data series with those values that exceed
some arbitrary level. All the peaks above a selected level of discharge (a threshold) are
included in the series and hence the series is often called the Peaks Over Threshold
(POT) series. There are generally more data values for analysis in this series than in the
annual series, but there is more chance of the peaks being related and the assumption
of true independence is less valid.
The probability of occurrence of the event r times in n successive years can be obtained
from:
(3.3)
Where q
= 1 - P.
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Consider, for example, a list of flood magnitudes of a river arranged in descending order as
shown in Table 3.3. The length of record is 50 years.
The last column shows the return period T of various flood magnitude, Q. A plot of Q Vs T
yields the probability distribution. For small return periods (i.e. for interpolation) or where
limited extrapolation is required, a simple best-fitting curve through plotted points can be
used as the probability distribution. A logarithmic scale for T is often advantageous.
However, when larger extrapolations of T are involved, theoretical probability distributions
(e.g. Gumbel extreme-value, Log- Pearson Type III, and log normal distributions) have to be
used. In frequency analysis of floods the usual problem is to predict extreme flood events.
Towards this, specific extreme-value distributions are assumed and the required statistical
parameters calculated from the available data. Using these flood magnitude for a specific
return period is estimated.
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Where x = value of the variate X of a random hydrologic series with a return period T, x
T
= mean of the variate, σ = standard deviation of the variate, K =frequency factor which
depends upon the return period, T and the assumed frequency distribution.
Gumbel makes use of a reduced variate y as a function of q, which allows the plotting of the
distribution as a linear function between y and X (the maximum flow in this case). Gumbel
also defined a flood as the largest of the 365 daily flows and the annual series of flood flows
constitute a series of largest values of flow. According to his theory of extreme events, the
probability of occurrence of an event equal to or larger than a value x0 is
(3.5)
(3.6)
(3.7)
In practice it is the value of X for a given P that is required as such Eq. (3.7) is
transposed as
(3.8)
(3.9)
(3.10)
Now rearranging Eq. (3.7) the value of the variate X with a return period T is
(3.11)
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Note that Eq. (3.12) is of the same form as the general equation of hydrologic frequency
analysis, Eq. (3.4). Further eqs (3.11) and (3.12) constitute the basic Gumbel's equations
and are applicable to an infinite sample size (i.e. N → ∞).
Since practical annual data series of extreme events such as floods, maximum rainfall
depths, etc., all have finite lengths of record; Eq. (3.12) is modified to account for finite N as
given below for practical use.
(3.13)
(3.14)
(3.15)
Table
3.5; for N→∞, Sn→ 1.2825
These equations are used under the following procedure to estimate the flood magnitude
corresponding to a given return period based on annual flood series.
1. Assemble the discharge data and note the sample size N. Here the annual flood
value is the variate X. Find x and σn-1 for the given data.
2. Using Tables 3.4 and 4.5 determine yn and Sn appropriate to given N
3. Find yT for a given T by Eq.(3.15).
4. Find K by Eq.(3.14).
5. Determine the required xT by Eq.(3.13).
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To verify whether the given data follow the assumed Gumbel's distribution, the following
procedure may be adopted. The value of x for some return periods T<N are calculated by
T
log-log or Gumbel probability paper. The use of Gumbel probability paper results in a
straight line for x Vs T plot. Gumbel's distribution has the property which gives T = 2.33
T
years for the average of the annual series when N is very large. Thus the value of a flood
with T = 2.33 years is called the mean annual flood. In graphical plots this gives a
mandatory point through which the line showing variation of x with T must pass. For the
T
given data, values of return periods (plotting positions) for various recorded values, x of the
variate are obtained by the relation T = (N+1)/m and plotted on the graph described above.
A good fit of observed data with the theoretical variation line indicates the applicability of
Gumbel's distribution to the given data series. By extrapolation of the straight-line x Vs T, T
The Gumbel (or extreme-value) probability paper is a paper that consists of an abscissa
specially marked for various convenient values of the return period T (or corresponding
reduced variate y in arithmetic scale). The ordinate of a Gumbel paper represent x (flood
T T
discharge, maximum rainfall depth, etc.), which may have either arithmetic scale or
logarithmic scale.
Table 3.4: Reduced mean in Gumbel’s extreme value distribution, N= sample size
Table 3.5: Reduced standard deviation Sn in Gumbel’s extreme value distribution, N=sample
size
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(3.16a)
K= frequency factor given by Eq. (3.14)
It is seen that for a given sample and T, 80% confidence limits are twice as large as the
50% limits and 95% limits are thrice as large as 50% limits.
In addition to the analysis of maximum extreme events, there also is a need to analyze
minimum extreme events; e.g. the occurrence of droughts. The probability distribution of
Gumbel, similarly to the Gaussian probability distribution, does not have a lower limit;
meaning that negative values of events may occur. As rainfall or river flows do have a
lower limit of zero, neither the Gumbel nor Gaussian distribution is an appropriate tool to
analyze minimum values. Because the logarithmic function has a lower limit of zero, it is
often useful to first transform the series to its logarithmic value before applying the
theory. Appropriate tools for analyzing minimum flows or rainfall amounts are the Log-
Normal, Log-Gumbel, or Log-Pearson distributions.
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(3.20)
The variations of Kz = f(Cs, T) is given in Table 3.6. After finding z by Eq.(3.19), the
T
coefficient of skew Cs, is adjusted to account for the size of the sample by using the
following relation proposed by Hazen (1930)
(3.21)
Where s Cˆ = adjusted coefficient of skew. However the standard procedure for use of
Log-Pearson Type III distribution adopted by U.S. Water Resources Council does not
include this adjustment for skew. When the skew is zero, i.e. C s = 0, the Log-Pearson
Type III distribution reduces to Log-normal distribution. The Log-normal distribution plots
as a straight line
on logarithmic probability paper.
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Flood-frequency studies are most reliable in climates that are uniform from year to year.
In such cases a relatively short record gives a reliable picture of the frequency
distribution. With increasing lengths of flood records, it affords a viable alternative
method of flood-flow estimation in most cases.
A final remark of caution should be made regarding to frequency analysis. None of the
frequency distribution functions have a real physical background. The only information
having physical meaning are the measurements themselves. Extrapolation beyond the
period of observation is dangerous. It requires a good engineer to judge the value of
extrapolated events of high return periods. A good impression of the relativity of
frequency analysis can be acquired through the comparison of result obtained from
different statistical methods. Generally they differ considerably.
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For purposes of statistical analysis, low flows are defined as annual minimum flows
averaged over consecutive-day periods of varying length. The most commonly used
averaging period is d = 7days, but analyses are often carried out for d = 1,3, 15, 30, 60,
90 and 180 days as well. Low-flow quantile values are cited as "dQp," where p is now
the annual non-exceedence probability (in percent) for the flow averaged over d-days.
The 7-day average flow that has an annual non-exceedence probability of 0.10 (a
recurrence interval of 10 yr),
called "7QI0," is commonly used as a low-flow design value. the “7Q10” value is
interpreted as follows:
In any year there is a 10% probability that the lowest 7-consecutive-day average
flow will be less than the 7QIO value.
Droughts
Droughts are extended severe dry periods. To qualify as a drought, a dry period must
have duration of at least a few months and be a significant departure from normal.
Drought must be expected as part of the natural climate, even in the absence of any
long term climate change. However, “permanent” droughts due to natural climate shifts
do occur, and appear to have been responsible for large scale migrations and declines
of civilizations through human history. The possibility of regional droughts associated
with climatic shifts due to warming
cannot be excluded. As shown in Figure 3.3, droughts begin with a deficit in precipitation
that is unusually extreme and prolonged relative to the usual climatic conditions
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These conditions commonly produce extended periods of unusually low soil moisture,
which affect agriculture and natural plant growth and the moisture of forest floor
(Agricultural drought). As the precipitation deficit continues, stream discharge, lake,
wetland, and reservoir levels, and water-table decline to unusually low levels
(Hydrological drought). When precipitation returns to more normal values, drought
recovery follows the same sequence: meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological.
Meteorological drought is usually characterized as a precipitation deficit.
qu = a + bqg (3.22)
where:
qu is the flow at the un-gauged site, qg is the concurrent flow at the gauged site,
and a and b are estimated via regression anlysis. Then estimate the dQp at the un-
gauged site, dQpu, as:
where:
dQqg is the dQp value established by frequency analysis at the gauged site. In order to
minimize errors when using this procedure, each pair of flows used to establish equation
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(3.22) should be from a separate hydrograph recession, the r 2 value for the relation of
equation (3.22) should be at least 0.70 and the two basins should be similar in size,
geology, topography, and climate.
Drought type:
As noted, one may be interested in one or more of the basic types of drought, each
reflected in time series of particular types of data: meteorological (precipitation);
agricultural (soil moisture); or hydrological (stream flow, reservoir levels, or ground water
levels)
Averaging Period:
As with time-series analysis generally, drought analysis requires selection of an
averaging period (dt). Since drought by definition have significant duration, one would
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usually select dt = 1 month, 3 months, or 1 yr, with the choice depending on the
available data and the purposes of the analysis. For a given record length the selection
of dt involves a trade-off in uncertainty of the analysis:
Drought definition:
Figure 3.4 shows a time series of a selected quantity, X (e.g., precipitation, stream flow,
ground water level), averaged over an appropriate dt. The quantitative definition of
drought is determined by the truncation level, X 0, selected by the analyst: Values of X <
X0 are defined as droughts. Typical values for X 0 might be:
Once X0 is determined, each period for which X < X0 constitutes a “drought” and each
“drought” is characterized by the following measures:
Duration, D = length of period for which X < X0;
Severity, S = cumulative deviation from X0;
Intensity (or magnitude), I = S/D.
Note that if X is stream flow [L3T-1], then the dimensions of S are [L3T-1]x[T]=[L3] and
the dimensions of I are [L3T-1]
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(3.24)
(3.25)
It can be seen that the return period for which a structure should be designed depends
upon the acceptable level of risk. In practice, the acceptable risk is governed by
economic and policy considerations.
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(3.26)
The parameter M includes such items as flood discharge magnitude, maximum river
stage, reservoir capacity and free board. The difference (C am - Chm) is known as Safety
Margin.
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