Department of Civil Engineering

Arusha Technical College

Flood Frequency Analysis

Lecture 04

By: Deus Michael

 Outline
1. Introduction
2. Objective of flood frequency analysis
3. Data for flood frequency analysis
4. Frequency estimation
4.1 Graphical approach
4.2 Analytical approach
5. Application of statistical distributions
6. Risk analysis
7. Flood mitigation measure
 Introduction

A flood can be defined from various points of view such as:

Geomorphology:
A flood is a flow that overtops the natural or artificial banks of a stream

Water management:
- A flood is the interference of the flow excess with human activity.
- It is measured by actual or potential economic damage and danger to
human life.

Hydrology:
A flood is a discharge wave moving downstream in a channel whereby
the water level, water surface slope, velocity and discharge are
changing with distance and time.
 (Introduction Cont.)

Causes of Floods

• Natural sources are rainfall and water released by melting from snow
and ice.
• Bank erosion, rising of river beds by deposition of silt and changing
of the river course may result to flooding.
• At special occasions, short-term rise in water level may result from
ice, debris and boulders blocking the cross-section of a stream.
• Under normal circumstances, the floods in big river basins result
from great amount of rainfall within several days, while for the small
watersheds the floods may result from precipitation of local extent.
(Introduction Cont.)

Man made influences

Man kind is responsible in changing the natural conditions of basin

storage through the following interventions.

 Sealing by urbanization
 Changing landuse
 Changing forest to arable land
 Straightening and impoundment of water courses
 Reduction of natural flooding areas.
(Introduction Cont.)

Flood mitigation Measures

• The complete elimination of floods is an impossible task, but

damages can be reduced by taking preventive measures.
• Whatever measures which have to be considered to control floods,
they have to be guided by the principle to minimise human
interferences on the river regime.
• Further more, the different measures must be integrated into all
interdisciplinary water resources management plans of the river
basin.
• The final decision in adopting a flood damage reduction
programme is a political issue which will take into consideration
economic, social and cultural values and environmental effects.
• Possible measures which can be considered to reduce flood
damage are presented below.
 (Introduction Cont.)
Flood mitigation Measures

Maintain water retention areas

Restoration of inundation plains and natural river system, maintaining and
promoting small-scale structures for water retention in the land scape.

Maintain the natural water ways

To secure discharge capacity of the water course, flooded areas and flow
paths must be maintained and for ecological reasons be enlarged.

Construction of Flood protection structures

Construction of dikes, walls, retention basins and reservoirs may provide
protection against the dangers of floods up to a certain design flood level.
 (Introduction Cont.)

Flood mitigation Measures

Flood zoning
Technical flood protection does not guarantee absolute safety. A detailed flood
risk map must be prepared. In order to reduce the flood damage potential, the
flood zoning map should indicate activities allowed to be undertaken on the
map. For example no construction permits should be issued in flood-prone
areas.
Catchment management
Conservation of natural forests and afforestation has the effect of increasing
infiltration because vegetation cover retards surface flow, giving the water
additional time to enter the soil. This results in reducing the discharge peaks.
Increase the awareness of flood risk
The society has to be informed of the threat of floods as part of the awareness
of the natural conditions on water courses and where necessary be advised to
construct houses which are flood proof.
 (Introduction Cont.)
Flood mitigation measures
Flood warning system
•The flood warning system is a tool which can be used to give a warning
of an extreme flood event.
•The forecast is usually made on the basis of rainfall-runoff
transformation model using raingauge measurements or else by means of
models simulating flood wave propagation using the measurement of
water levels in some significant hydrometric sections.
•Forecasts of short lead time like one day forecast is more accurate but it
is less useful because it doesn’t give much time for preparation to
evacuate people from a floodplain for example.
•The development of the flood forecasting system therefore should aim to
try to achieve greater levels of accuracy in forecasts of higher lead time so
as to appropriate measures to be taken to reduce flood damage in an event
of a big flood.
 FLOOD FREQUENCY ANALYSIS

General
• Occurrence of large floods can course damage to Civil Engineering
structures (including Water resources Systems) and loss to life

• Designs for flood control works, dam spillway, bridges, culverts,

storm drainage, and other hydraulic structures are based on flood
magnitudes of specified frequency/probability of failure

• Statistical techniques are used to estimate frequencies/probabilities

of occurrences/risks of large floods
Objective of Flood Frequency Analysis

Magnitude of river Recurrence interval

Peak Flows (Q) or Return period (T)

From data at flow gauging stations

Recurrence Interval/ Return Period (T)

• It is an expression of the frequency of
occurrence of a flood of a certain magnitude
• It is defined as the average time interval which
a flood of specified magnitude is equaled or
exceeded
 Approach to Flood frequency analysis

• The Q -T relationship, i.e., the relationship between the

flood magnitude (Q) and its return period (T) can be
estimated from the analysis of observed flood peaks.
• For the analysis to be valid, the flood peaks, under
consideration, must be of random magnitude and
mutually independent.
• Given the usual shortness in observed flood records,
extrapolation of frequency functions is quite uncertain so
that the larger the flood and the greater the hazard it
represents, the less reliable is the estimate of the
frequency with which the flood is likely to occur.
 Important Definitions
• Probability density function (pdf), f(x) – This is a function which gives
the probability of occurrence of an event
• Cumulative distribution function (cdf), F(x) – This is a function which
gives the probability of occurrence of all events that are equal or less than
a specified event.
• Non-exceedance probability, F(x) – This is the probability of occurrence
of all events that are equal to or less than a specified event
• Exceedance probability, [1-F(x)]–This is the probability of occurrence of
all events that are equal to or greater than a specified event
• The return period (T), also known as recurrence interval, is an
expression of the frequency of occurrence of a flood of a certain
magnitude.
• Return period is defined as the average time interval between the
occurrences of an event equal to or greater than.
• Flood magnitude is generally designated by the peak discharge (Q).
Atypical shape of (pdf) and (cdf)
 Data Relevant for FFA
Annual Maximum series (AM)

• The series consists of the peak flow of each year and

it is the most frequent used series
• One of the aspects in favour of the AM series is the
reasonable assumption that the data is not serially
correlated
• A disadvantage of AM series is that the second or
third, etc, highest event in a particular year may be
higher than the maximum event in another year and
yet these values are totally disregarded
 Daily Flows Peaks over Threshold Annual Maximum Values
450

400

350

300
Flow magnitudes (Cumecs)

250

200

150

100

50

0
1/1/1980 12/31/1980 12/31/1981 12/31/1982 12/31/1983 12/30/1984
Time in Days
 Data Relevant for FFA
Partial Duration Series (PD)

• The series consists of peaks exceeding the threshold

q0.
• The PD includes all events above a certain base
magnitude, i.e., the disadvantage of disregarding
some of the significant high events in any particular
year in AM series is remedied
• Each event that is included in the PD series must be
separate and distinct
Estimation of Frequency/Probability of occurrence of an Event

Graphical Approach
• Frequencies are determined simply by arranging observed AM
events in the order of magnitude
• The plotting position formulae are applied to compute the
probability of occurrence of observed AM events
Weibull Formula: F(x) = i/(N+1)
Gringorten Formula: F(x) = (i-0.44)/(N+0.12)
Where F(x) = Non-exceedance probability
i = Rank (1,2,3,…., N)
N = Total number of data points
• Plot of magnitudes of AM events versus computed probabilities of
occurrences provides a frequency curve which can be used to
estimate the probability of occurrence of any specified event
• Plot of the frequency curve on a probability paper (special
designed paper) will plot the curve in a straight line curve.
Probability plot of peak flows on linear scale
Plot of Peak flows on Gumbel probability paper
Estimation of Frequency/Probability of occurrence of an Event
Analytical Approach
• The concept of theoretical distribution is employed
• A distribution is a set of values that occur under fixed conditions in an infinite
amount of time
• A distribution can be used to give probabilities of occurrences in the population
• For a random variable X, the cumulative distribution function (cdf) denoted as
F(x), is the probability the random variable X is less than or equal to the value x,
i.e., F(x) = P(X = or  x)
• F(x) is referred to as non-exceedance probability, i.e., it is the probability of
occurrence of events that are equal to or less than a specified event.
• The complement of F(x), i.e., [1-F(x) ] is referred to as exceedance probability.
This is the probability of occurrence of all events that are equal to or greater
than a specified event Pr (X  x).
• The reciprocal of the exceedance probability is the return period, T, i.e.,
T = 1/(1-F(x))
• Flood magnitude QT corresponding to the design return period T are estimated
from records from gauging stations using statistical distributions
Atypical shape of (pdf) and (cdf)
 Statistical Distributions to Estimate Flood Magnitudes

• Normal distribution
• Lognormal distribution
• Exponential
• Gumbel Distribution/Extreme Value type I distribution
• Pearson type III distribution
• Log-Pearson type III distribution
• Gamma distribution
• General Extreme Value distribution
• General Pareto
• Log-logistic
Typical shapes of histogram of flood peaks
 Method of Parameter Estimation
i) Method of moments (MOM)
The method of moments is one of the most commonly and simply
used method for estimating the parameters of a statistical
distribution. In most cases the first three central moments , i.e., the
mean, variance and skewness are adequate to estimate the required
parameters.
ii) Maximum likelihood (ML)
Parameters estimated by maximum likelihood are determined by
maximizing the sample log likelihood function. Sometimes there is
a failure to obtain proper solutions to the equations due to
complexity of log likelihood functions.
iii) Probability weighted moments (PWM)
This is a statistical estimation procedure based on the calculation
of probability weighted moments (PWM). This method is simple,
unbiased and stable.