A region of influence approach to predicting flow duration curves within ungauged catchments

M. G. R. Holmes (1) , A. R. Young (1) , A. Gustard (1) , R. Grew (2)

1 CEH - Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
2 Environment Agency for England and Wales

The development of regionalised hydrological models or procedures for estimating flow duration statistics has been the subject of international research since the 1970s. Historically these models have been based on multivariate statistical models that relate flow statistics to the physical and climatic characteristics of a catchment. The a priori classification of catchments has often been a component of this analysis. This paper discusses the background to the development of such models, with particular emphasis on the United Kingdom; it describes a new region of influence approach to estimating flow duration statistics and compares the performance of this method with current multivariate regression based methods for estimating flow duration statistics within the United Kingdom.

Keywords: hydrological models, regionalisation, river networks, water resources, flow duration curves, region of influence

Domaines: Interfaces continentales, environnement; Océan, Atmosphère; Sciences de la Terre

M. G. R. Holmes, A. R. Young, A. Gustard, R. Grew. A region of influence approach to predicting flow duration curves within ungauged catchments. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2002, 6 (4), pp.721-731. ⟨hal-00304722⟩