Evaluating Methods to Predict Streamflow at Ungauged Sites using Regional Flow Duration Curves: A Case Study

Nruthya, K and Srinivas, VV (2015) Evaluating Methods to Predict Streamflow at Ungauged Sites using Regional Flow Duration Curves: A Case Study. In: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WATER RESOURCES, COASTAL AND OCEAN ENGINEERING (ICWRCOE'15), MAR 11-14, 201, Natl Inst Technol Karnataka, Mangaluru, INDIA, pp. 641-648.

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Abstract

Precise information on streamflows is of major importance for planning and monitoring of water resources schemes related to hydro power, water supply, irrigation, flood control, and for maintaining ecosystem. Engineers encounter challenges when streamflow data are either unavailable or inadequate at target locations. To address these challenges, there have been efforts to develop methodologies that facilitate prediction of streamflow at ungauged sites. Conventionally, time intensive and data exhaustive rainfall-runoff models are used to arrive at streamflow at ungauged sites. Most recent studies show improved methods based on regionalization using Flow Duration Curves (FDCs). A FDC is a graphical representation of streamflow variability, which is a plot between streamflow values and their corresponding exceedance probabilities that are determined using a plotting position formula. It provides information on the percentage of time any specified magnitude of streamflow is equaled or exceeded. The present study assesses the effectiveness of two methods to predict streamflow at ungauged sites by application to catchments in Mahanadi river basin, India. The methods considered are (i) Regional flow duration curve method, and (ii) Area Ratio method. The first method involves (a) the development of regression relationships between percentile flows and attributes of catchments in the study area, (b) use of the relationships to construct regional FDC for the ungauged site, and (c) use of a spatial interpolation technique to decode information in FDC to construct streamflow time series for the ungauged site. Area ratio method is conventionally used to transfer streamflow related information from gauged sites to ungauged sites. Attributes that have been considered for the analysis include variables representing hydrology, climatology, topography, land-use/land- cover and soil properties corresponding to catchments in the study area. Effectiveness of the presented methods is assessed using jack knife cross-validation. Conclusions based on the study are presented and discussed. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Item Type:	Conference Proceedings
Series.:	Aquatic Procedia
Publisher:	ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
Additional Information:	International Conference on Water Resources, Coastal and Ocean Engineering (ICWRCOE), Natl Inst Technol Karnataka, Mangaluru, INDIA, MAR 11-14, 2015
Keywords:	Flow duration curve; Regionalization; Spatial interpolation; Area ratio method
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Civil Engineering
Date Deposited:	15 Jun 2015 07:37
Last Modified:	15 Jun 2015 07:37
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/51663

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