FREQUENCY ANALYSIS (PROBABILITY IN HYDROLOGY)

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 will
equal or exceed a specified value.
These probabilities are important to the economic and social evaluation of a project.
The planning goal is not to eliminate all floods but to reduce the frequency of flooding,
and hence the resulting damages.
For major projects, the failure of which seriously threatens human life, a more extreme
event or the probable maximum flood, has become the standard for designing the
spillway.
 Conti…
 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 and kurtosis 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 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. flow used
for hydropower production, irrigation, water supply etc.),
 extreme flows (floods and droughts)

 and also minimum flow for downstream users

 Flow Duration Curve (FDC)

Flow duration curve (FDC) is the relationship between any given

discharge and the percentage of time that the discharge is exceeded.
Taking the N-years of flow records from a river gauging stations, there
are 365 or 366 daily mean discharges.
The discharge is compiled, starting with the highest values
If N numbers of discharge data points are used for analysis, the
percentage probability of the any discharge magnitude being equaled
or exceeded will be:
Pp = m / (N+1)
Where, m = is the order number of the discharge (or class value)
Pp = percentage probability of the flow magnitude being equaled or
exceeded.
 FDC

FDC:
The shape of the flow-duration curve gives a good indication of a catchment’s characteristics response to its average
rainfall history.
An initially steeply sloped curve results from a very variable discharge, usually from small catchments with little
storage where the stream flow reflects directly the rainfall pattern.
Flow duration curves that have very flat slope indicate little variation in flow regime, the resultant of the damping
effects of large storages.
 Flood Probability

• Selection of Data

In order to get reliable result from probability analysis, selecting Relevant, Adequate and Accurate data

has great importance.

• Relevance implies that the data must deal with the problem. For example: If the problem is to know

period of time for which a highway (road) adjacent to a stream or water way is likely to be flooded, then

the data series should represent duration of flows in excess of some critical value.

Adequacy refers to length of stream flow record. Note: The output (flood probability) obtained from so

many years data is more reliable than that obtained by using smaller number of stream flow records.

Accuracy refers primarily to the problem of homogeneity or the similarity between available data and

actual stream flow record.

 CONTI…
 Therefore, before using a given data checking for its consistency (reliability) is crucial. Basically, data

series that is used for flood probability analysis is of two types:

 The annual series and

 The partial duration series

 The annual series: The annual series constitutes the data series of a single maximum

daily/monthly/annually discharge record in each year so that the number of data values equals the record
length in years. This data series is necessary if the analysis is concerned with probability less than 0.5.

 The partial duration series: 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.
 Plotting Positions

 It is a plot of peak flow and return period.

 To obtain the probability of each flood peak in the series, being equaled or
exceeded, first the data is arranged in descending order, then the probability of
each event is calculated.
The probability of each events
P can
m
 be calculated as follow
N 1

The recurrence interval T, (also 1

T called
 return period of frequency is calculated as follow
P

Where: m= Serial number of the event in the arranged data series

N = Number of data point or years of record in the series
P = Probability of flow being equaled or exceeded and
Tr = Return period of flow
 Conti…
• The return period: Tr indicates the average interval between the occurrence
of floods equal to or greater than a given magnitude.
Table: Guideline for selecting return period, (Tr)
Return
period,€ yrs)
No. Structure

1 Spill ways for projects with storage of more than 60million cum 1000

2 Barrage and miner dams with storage less than 60 million cum 100

Spill ways of small reservoir dams in the country side, not

3 10-20
endangering urban residences

As above but located so as endanger other structures or urban

4 50-100
residences in case of failure

5 Diversion weirs 50-100

6 Small bridges on main high ways 50-100
 Extreme-Value Type I Distribution (Gumbel’s Method)

It is one of the most widely used probability distribution functions for extreme
values in hydrologic and meteorological studies for prediction of flood peaks,
maximum rainfalls, and maximum wind speed, etc.
This extreme value theory of Gumbel is only applicable to annual extremes.
In the Gumbel method the data are ranked in ascending order and it makes use
of the probability of non exceedance or the probability that the annual
maximum flow is less than a certain magnitude, q. where (q=1-p)


Gumbel also defined a flood asConti…
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
 Gumbel's Equation for Practical Use

The original Gumbel equation can be transposed as follows:

Therefore:
 Conti…
• But, Chow has shown that most frequency • Standard deviation of the variate
distribution functions applicable in and it is given by
hydrologic studies can be expressed by the
equation given below which is known as
the general equation of hydrologic
frequency analysis:
• K = Frequency factor which depends
upon the return period, Tr and the
• Where: xT = Value of the variate X of a assumed frequency distribution
random hydrologic series with a return • It is given by:
period T,
• = Mean of the variate,
 Cont…

• Thus,
Conti…
Conti…
 Cont…
The above 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 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
4. Find K
5. Determine the required XT
 Confidence Limits for the fitted
data
• For a confidence probability c, the confidence interval of the variate xT
is bound by value x1 and x2 given by
x1/2 = xT± f (c) Se
• Where f(c) = function of the confidence probability c determined by
using the table of normal variate as