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Development of a Regional Non-dimensional Return Period Flood Model

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DOI: 10.1007/s11269-009-9507-1

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Water Resour Manage (2010) 24:1425–1439
DOI 10.1007/s11269-009-9507-1

Development of a Regional Non-dimensional Return

Period Flood Model

Pradeep K. Bhunya · Niranjan Panigrahy ·

Rakesh Kumar · Ronny Berndtsson

Received: 27 November 2008 / Accepted: 31 August 2009 /

Published online: 19 September 2009
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Abstract Based on the non-dimensional approach, this study focuses on developing

a model to compute design flood for specific return periods whose parameter esti-
mations are done using the Marquardt algorithm considering peak flood data of 100
Indian catchments. The selected flood data varies for majority of the sites for a period
of 10 years, and for a few sites up to 36 years; and as a preliminary processing these
data are checked for outliers, discordancy, and other errors. The model is calibrated
for a variety of situations, and validated on selected gauged catchments. Both the
descriptive and predictive goodness-of-fit measures are computed considering the
floods of specific return periods estimated from the observed data. The model is
found to perform well for the whole study area. Investigations reveal the model to be
useful to any catchment within the hydrologically homogeneous region with limited
or no flood data conditions.

Keywords Hydrologically homogeneous region · Design flood ·

Regional flood frequency · L-moment ratios · Dimensional analysis

1 Introduction

Due to short length of many annual flood series, reliable estimation of extreme
events, at site, has been very difficult. The difficulties include the identification of
the appropriate statistical distribution for describing the data and the estimation of
the parameters of a selected distribution. Hence regional flood frequency analysis has
been recognized as a powerful means to improve flood estimates. Direct regression

P. K. Bhunya · N. Panigrahy (B) · R. Kumar

National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, 247667, India
e-mail: panigrahy@nih.ernet.in

R. Berndtsson
Department of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
1426 P.K. Bhunya et al.

method and index flood method are commonly used regional flood frequency proce-
dures. Both the methods use certain assumptions and have their own advantages and
limitations. In this work it has been tried to investigate the applicability of dimen-
sional analysis for development of regional flood formulae. Edson (1951) applied the
dimensional analysis to model runoff from a watershed and develop a relationship
between rainfall, watershed area, and runoff of watersheds. Later, Grace and Eagle-
son (1966, 1967) used this approach for modeling the overland flow considering the
catchment area and gravitational acceleration as repetitive variables while forming
the dimensionless variables. Among other studies, the works of Black (1972), Grace
and Eagleson (1966, 1967), Wong (1979), Gidas and Constantinou (1983), Calver
and Wood (1991) exhibit the potential and limitations of dimensional analysis in
various hydrological studies. And recently, Cheng (2000) discussed about the three
non-dimensional numbers to explore how the peak outflow changes at a dam breach
section, and similarly Grover et al. (2002) focused the dimensionless nonlinear model
which outperformed all of the other parameter estimation techniques for each of the
three indices selected including the index flood estimation procedures for ungauged
catchments. Since Wong (1979) applied the dimensional analysis to mean annual
floods, it is of direct relevance to the present investigation, and also relies on the study
of Swamee et al. (1995) dealing with the mean annual flood estimation for Indian
catchments. However, the earlier studies have given less than adequate emphasis
on the incorporation of L-moment ratios, such as, L-coefficient of variation (L-CV),
L-Skewness (L-SK), and L-kurtosis (L-KR; Hosking 1990; Hosking and Wallis 1993)
in the development of a regional return period flood model. Their incorporation
appears to be desirable for improved model performance and better interpretation
of results. Thus, the objective of the present study is to (a) develop a regional return
period flood model using non-dimensional variables, (b) calibrate and validate it
using the observed data, and (c) compare the results with some of the available
regional flood frequency models.

2 Non-dimensional Variables and Groups

Based on the available data for Indian catchments, the return period flood (QT ),
mean annual peak flood (Qm ), catchment area (A), main stream length (L), and
probability of exceedance of peak floods (PQ ) were taken as variables to form the
following non-dimensional groups (Langhaar 1951):

π 1 = PQ (1a)

π2 = A/L2 (1b)

π3 = QT /Qm (1c)

where π3 is the dependent non-dimensional group, and other π-terms define the
independent non-dimensional groups. In this study, the L-moments ratios were also
included as non-dimensional groups, and their computation using the observed flood
data are followed in following steps.
Development of Regional Non-dimensional Return Period Flood Model 1427

The L-moment estimators λ̂1 , λ̂2 , λ̂3 , and λ̂4 are obtained by unbiased estimators
of the first three probability weighted moment (PWM) defined by Hosking and
Wallis (1993) as follows:
λ1=β0 (1d)

λ 2 = 2 β1 − β 0 (1e)

λ 3 = 6 β2 − 6 β1 + β 0 (1f)

λ 4 = 20 β3 − 30 β2 + 12 β1 − β 0 (1g)
β0 , β1 ,β2 and β3 in the above equations are PWMs given by,
  r 
βr = E X F (x) (1h)
where, F(x) is the cumulative distribution function of x. When r = 0, β0 is the mean.
The L-moment ratios viz. L-Coefficient of Variation (L-CV) is the ratio of second
to first L moment (= λ2 /λ1 ), L-skewness (L-SK) is the ratio of third to second L
moment (= λ3 /λ2 ) and L-Kurtosis (L-KR) is the ratio of fourth to second L moment
(= λ4 /λ2 ), as non-dimensional groups are designated as follows:
π4 = L − CV (1i)

π5 = L − SK (1j)

π6 = L − KR (1k)
Here, it is necessary to address (a) the physical significance of non-dimensional
groups and (b) the improvement of model accuracy by a better functional relation-
ship and estimation of its parameters. The second aspect has, however, dominated to
a great extent in hydrological studies. For example, in the study of Wong (1979), it is
difficult to appreciate the physical significance of all the non-dimensional groups.
Depending on the analogy used, it is generally possible to note similarities with
respect to certain non-dimensional groups. For example, in the non-dimensional
groups; π1 -term is the probability of exceedances of flood (Stedinger and Lu 1995);
π2 is the form factor used to quantify the degree of similarity of drainage catchment
shapes, which influence the flood hydrograph shape. Similarly, all π4 , π5 , and π6 terms
depend on the probability-weighted moments (PWM’s) and account for the nature
of the annual peak flood distribution (Landwehr et al. 1979a, b; Hosking 1990).
Here, it is noted that different criteria for similarities are generally not feasible in
hydrological studies (Black 1972; Grace and Eagleson 1967). Furthermore, similitude
considerations can be avoided by considering the model as prototype, for the present
study deals with the prototype condition.

3 Data and Preliminary Analysis

The hydrological data used in this study include annual peak discharge, catchment
area, and length of the main stream for 100 Indian catchments located in different
1428 P.K. Bhunya et al.

68˚ 72˚ 76˚ 80˚ 84˚ 88˚ 92˚ 96˚

36˚ 36˚

Scale
1 : 8 Million
32˚ 32˚

1e 2a
28˚ 28˚

2b
24˚ 24˚

3b 3d
20˚ 20˚
3f

16˚ 16˚
Sub-zone Region
1e Upper Ganga
2a North Brahmaputra
12˚ 2b South Brahmaputra 12˚
3b Lower Narmada & Tapi
3d Lower Godavari
3f Mahanadi
08˚ 08˚

68˚ 72˚ 76˚ 80˚ 84˚ 88˚ 92˚

Fig. 1 Index map of selected hydrologically homogeneous sub-zones in India used for the study

hydrologically homogeneous sub-zones (Fig. 1). Table 1 summarizes the data statis-
tics. The selection of the catchments is based on availability of at least 10 years of
historical data least influenced by human activities. The size of the selected small

Table 1 Statistical properties of data used

Regions No of Mean annual σL−CVa Catchment Length of
(Sub-zone) catchments peak flood (6) area main stream
(1) (2) (m3 /s) (km2 ) (km)
Mean Max. Min. Max. Min. Max. Min.
(3) (4) (5) (7) (8) (9) (10)
Upper Ganga (1e) 16 3,211 12,985 294 0.16 22,949 335 293 21
Lower 19 1,202 3,400 190 0.14 824 34 92.3 10.1
Godavari (3f)
Mahanadi (3d) 23 734 4,550 72 0.09 1,150 19 80.5 9.8
Lower Narmada 19 945 2,800 123 0.11 1,018 17 64.0 3.4
& Tapi (3b)
Brahmaputra 23 3,435 11,689 149 0.08 14,197 198 248 48
(2a and 2b)
a Standard deviation of the L-CV’s for the region
Development of Regional Non-dimensional Return Period Flood Model 1429

to medium catchments varies as follows: 11 catchments greater than 2,000 km2 ,

20 catchments range between 1,000 and 2,000 km2 , and 69 catchments less than
1,000 km2 in area. The formation of sub-zones considered in the study is based on the
subdivisions of main river catchments in India, and the average annual peak flood for
a catchment taken as the arithmetic mean of the available peak flood series.

3.1 Regional Homogeneity

It is seen from Table 1 that the low values of standard deviation of the at-site L-
CV’s exhibit low dispersion of data for the study area (Hosking and Wallis 1997).
Figures 2a–e show the L-CV and L-SK plots for different sub zones of the region,
and Fig. 2f represents that of the entire region. It is observed that 3b sub-zone, and
Brahmaputra region are relatively more homogeneous than the others. As shown in
Fig. 2b, the degree of homogeneity of sub-zone 3f improves if the discordant station
(the extreme right point in the figure) is removed. Therefore, the site discordancy
(D) and the heterogeneity (Hi ) measures were computed for the whole study area
using the Hosking’s (1991) approach, and the computed values are summarized in
Table 2. Here, H1 , H2 and H3 represent heterogeneity with respect to coefficient of
variation, skewness, and kurtosis respectively. The use of H1 to check homogeneity,
especially in regions with a small number of sites, is advocated by Hosking (1991)
and Rao and Ahmed (1997) among others.
In the investigation, out of all 100 sites none was found outlier from the results
of the outlier test (Maidment 1993) and nine were found to be discordant with
the others in the respective regions. The heterogeneity measures H1 , H2 , and H3
computed before and after removing the discordant stations are given in columns 3–8
of Table 2. The bold faced H1 -values of 6.08, 5.96, and 13.1 indicate a very high degree
of heterogeneity, and it is supported by the corresponding high values of H2 (=2.64,
2.49, and 4.7, respectively) for 1e Sub-zone and whole study area. A substantial
improvement is apparent if the discordant stations are removed. However, H1 = 9.1
(after removing the discordant stations) suggests that the region is heterogeneous if
whole study area is considered as a single group. Thus, all regions except 3f sub-zone
are statistically homogeneous with respect to H3 ; and all regions, after removing the
discordant stations, are homogeneous with respect to H1 . These results are accounted
for in calibration of the return period flood model.

4 Non-dimensional Analysis

4.1 Return Period Flood Model

To obtain the return flood model i.e., to compute probability of exceedance of a

design flood for specific return periods (T), it is necessary to examine the possible re-
lationships among the non-dimensional groups Eqs. 1a, 1b, 1c, 1i, 1j, and 1k which we
write as Eq. 1. To this end, the correlation between various non-dimensional groups
(Wong 1979) is first taken up because it signifies different non-dimensional groups
and helps select them for model development. The correlation test is supplemented
by the paired t-test to infer the significance of the above variables following the null
hypothesis (Montgomery and Runger 1994).
1430 P.K. Bhunya et al.

(a) (d)
0.80 0.60 L-CV
L-CV

0.60
0.40

0.40

0.20
0.20

L-SK L-SK
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50

(b) (e)
0.60 L-CV
1.00 L-CV

0.80
0.40

0.60

0.40
0.20

0.20

L-SK L-SK
0.00 0.00
0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50

(c) (f)
0.60 L-CV
1 L-CV

0.8
0.40

0.6 Discordant sites

0.4
0.20

0.2

L-S K L-SK
0.00 0
0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 -0.4 0 0.4 0.8 1.2

Fig. 2 a L-Moment ratio diagrams for Sub zone 1e. b L-Moment ratio diagrams for Sub zone 3f.
c L-Moment ratio diagrams for Sub zone 3d. d L-Moment ratio diagrams for Sub zone 3b.
e L-Moment ratio diagrams for Sub zones 2a and 2b. f L-Moment ratio diagrams for the entire region

The results of correlation and t-tests for individual regions and the whole study
area are presented in Table 3. From the results, it is observed that the paired non-
dimensional groups π5 –π6 are highly correlated for the sub-zones 1e, 3d and 3f, and
Development of Regional Non-dimensional Return Period Flood Model 1431

Table 2 Discordency, outlier-test, and heterogeneity measures of data used

Sub-zone Range of Heterogeneity measures
discordency (D) All stations After removing discordant stations
H1 H2 H3 H1 H2 H3
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
1e Sub zone 0.015–4.01(2)a 6.08b 2.64b 1.24c 1.92c 1.40c 0.92d
3f Sub zone 0.03–2.08(2) 5.96b 2.49b 2.40b 1.93c 1.03d 0.45d
3d Sub zone 0.22–2.01(3) 2.27b 0.93d −0.20d 1.60c 0.27d −0.70d
3b Sub zone 0.19–2.13(1) 1.25c 1.18c 0.57d 0.87d 0.84d 0.30d
2a and 2b Sub zone 0.03–4.64(1) 3.07b 0.06d −0.97d 1.94c 0.08d −0.97d
All 0.06–12.2(9) 13.10b 4.70b 1.90c 9.10b 2.90b −0.50d
a Numbers in parenthesis denote the number of catchments in the region that are discordant with the
rest,
b Heterogeneous (|Hi |>2)
c Possibly heterogeneous (1<|Hi |<2)
d Homogeneous (|Hi |<1)

their simultaneous inclusion may not be advantageous. This is, however, not true
for other pairs of non-dimensional groups, except for random cases where the t0
values are highlighted. In such cases, the results of t-test suggest that the pair of non-
dimensional groups is strongly correlated contrary to the results of corresponding
correlation test results suggesting a very low correlation between the groups. The
results of correlation and t-tests for the whole study area (column 7) show none of
the pairs of non-dimensional groups to be correlated, and therefore, it is appropriate
to consider all the groups obtained in Eqs. 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e, 1f, 1g, 1h, 1i, 1j, and 1k
for developing the return period flood model.
The general form of the equation for computing floods of different return periods
called here after as return period flood model used in this study is as follows:
     a5
QT π6 a1 π4 a2 1
= π3 = a0 1 + 1+ (π5 )a3 (π2 )a4 (1 − π1 )a6 (2)
Qav π2 π5 π1

A number of different forms of equations involving the non-dimensional groups

Eqs. 1a, 1b, 1c, 1i, 1j, and 1k were tired to relate the groups. The following empirical
equation that produced the best results is selected. In Eq. 2, the parameters a0 to a6
are empirical constants, T is the return period in years, Qav is the average peak flow
for a catchment in m3 /s. As such, this equation needs to be used with the indicated
units only.
Thus, the computed value of QT for the ith data set can be obtained as:
     a5
π6i a1 π4i a2 1
QTi = a0 1 + 1+ (π5i ) (π2i )
a3 a4
(1 − π1i )a6 Qav (3)
π2i π5i π1i

where suffix i stands for the ith data set, and a0 to a6 are the fitted coefficients.
The return period for the observed flood was determined using the Gringorten
plotting position formula as follows (Singh 1988):

1 m − 0.44
PQ = = (4)
T N + 0.12
 1432

Table 3 Significance-test of non-dimensional groups for different regions

Paired non-dimensional groups Test statistics Godavari (3f) Mahanadi (3d) Upper Ganga (1e) Brahmaputra (2a & 2b) Whole study area
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
π4 − π5 Correlation 0.40 0.83 0.62 0.20 0.45
t-test (to ) 5.52 6.70 2.97 2.81 5.30
π5 − π6 Correlation 0.81 0.75 0.72 0.53 0.50
t-test (to ) 4.43 4.42 0.62 3.71 6.02
π4 − π6 Correlation 0.20 0.60 0.20 0.40 0.10
t-test (to ) 8.99 10.72 2.50 4.73 8.52
π2 − π5 Correlation 0.10 0.12 0.07 0.30 0.07
t-test (to ) 4.22 2.95 2.26 2.31 2.39
π2 − π6 Correlation 0.13 0.36 0.20 0.16 0.20
t-test (to ) 1.33 2.20 2.88 2.10 2.08
π2 − π6 Correlation 0.09 0.22 0.30 0.03 0.10
t-test (to ) 3.97 2.15 2.34 3.88 4.35
π2 − π5 Correlation 0.13 0.36 0.04 0.16 0.16
t-test (to ) 2.33 0.20 2.80 2.11 4.40
Degrees of freedom 18 22 15 22 99
tcr 2.11 2.07 2.13 2.07 1.99
Bold values indicate high correlation by correlation test; underlined values indicate high correlation by two-tailed t-test at 5% level of significance; and t0 is the
observed t-value for the paired groups
P.K. Bhunya et al.
Development of Regional Non-dimensional Return Period Flood Model 1433

where, m is the rank of annual peak flood series arranged in the descending order of
magnitude, and N is the total number of observations.

4.2 Model Calibration

Equation 3 was calibrated using observed annual peak series data of selected 81
catchments within 1e, 2a, 2b, 3d and 3f sub-zones (Table 1). The parameters a0 to
a6 Eq. 3 were estimated for the following cases:
1. For the whole study area considering L-CV, L-SK, and L-KR of individual
catchments;
2. For the whole study area considering L-CV, L-SK, and L-KR of individual
catchments, after removing discordant sites;
3. For the whole study area considering regional values of L-CV, L-SK, and L-KR;
4. For the whole study area considering regional values of L-CV, L-SK, and L-KR
after removing discordant sites;
5. For catchment size (a) less than 1,000 km2 and (b) above 1,000 km2 considering
L-CV, L-SK, and L-KR of individual catchments.
In case 5 the cutoff area of 1,000 km2 is taken because there are reasonable number
of catchments less than and greater than 1,000 km2 to facilitate the analysis. The
regional L-moment ratios (LMR) were computed as follows:

nsite
LM j × n ( j)
j=1
LMR = (5)

nsite
n ( j)
j=1

where LMj is the L-moment ratio of a catchment in the region, n(j) is the length of
the period of record in the corresponding catchment, and ‘nsite’ is the total number
of sites in the region. The goodness-of-fit of the calibration results were checked
using two statistics: (1) coefficient of determination (COD) and (2) efficiency (EFF),
expressed, respectively, as:
2

N
(QOi − QCi )
i=1
COD = 1 − (6)

N
(QOi − Qav ) 2
i=1

and
⎛ ⎞

N
⎜ (QOi − QCi ) 2
⎜ i=1 N − 1⎟
⎟
EF F (%) = ⎜1 − × ⎟ × 100 (7)
⎝ 
N N − 2⎠
(QOi − Qav )2
i=1

where, QOi and QCi are respective observed and computed peak discharge series for
the ith data, and Qav is the average of observed series for N samples.
The QCi values Eqs. 6 and 7 are computed using the probability of exceedance
(PQi ) Eq. 4 and Qav of the site. The model parameters for the above six cases were
1434 P.K. Bhunya et al.

determined using the Marquardt algorithm (Marquardt 1962), and the calibration
results are given in Table 4. It is observed that the calibrated parameter- for the
whole data i.e for case 1 are fairly close to those for different cases, except case 2
where these values differ significantly, and the goodness-of-fit is observed to have
decreased even after removing the discordant sites. The goodness-of-fit tested by
the COD measure are 0.98 and 0.99 for cases 1 and 5 (a), respectively, indicating
that the observed and the computed quantiles are close . Checking the robustness of
the proposed model using the efficiency as the goodness-of-fit measure, the percent
efficiencies Eq. 7 for the above two cases are 93.4 and 91, respectively; this indicates
a reasonably good fit. However, for case 3, both the values of COD and efficiency are
low indicating an underestimation of the return period flood. The computed return
period flood or the estimated quantiles decreases after removing the discordant sites,
as indicated by the results of cases 2 and 4. However, the closeness of observed
and computed quantiles improves by censoring certain data sets, though such a
manipulation can not ignore the chances of increasing the error in some other data
sets. All these possibilities were investigated to reconfirm the worth of Eq. 3.

4.3 Model Validation

For validation of the proposed model, the observed data of 20 catchments of Sub-
zone 3b were used. The return period of each observed peak discharge for the sites
in the sub-zone (3b) were estimated using its rank in the series using Eq. 4, and the
return period flood is treated as observed QT . Using T, Qav and model parameters,
the computed discharges corresponding to each observed QT were estimated from
Eq. 3. The model efficiency was tested for three different cases:

1. The return period flood is computed using the regional formula developed for
the whole study area using L-CV, L-SK, and L-KR calculated for individual
catchments [calibrated at Case 1], and the observed QT -values are compared
with the goodness-of-fit criteria.
2. The return period flood is computed using the regional formula developed for
the whole study area with regional parameters [calibrated at Case 3]; and the
observed QT -values are compared with the goodness-of-fit criteria.
3. The return period flood is computed using the regional formula developed for
study area on basis of catchment sizes less than 1,000 km2 , and L-CV, L-SK,

Table 4 Calibration results of the proposed model for six different cases (a6 = 1 for all the cases)
Cases Calibrated parameters COD EFF (%)
a0 a1 a2 a3 a4 a5
1 0.8732 0.45501 1.22108 0.89831 0.10917 0.35497 0.98 93.4
2 3.1667 0.36350 1.21190 0.90190 0.09190 −0.00100 0.73 60.2
3 0.8732 0.45501 1.22108 0.89831 0.10917 0.35497 0.75 60.5
4 0.8624 0.45921 1.21711 0.89831 0.10917 0.35297 0.67 55.1
5a 0.8732 0.45501 1.22108 0.89831 0.10917 0.35497 0.99 91.0
5b 0.8612 0.45501 1.24108 0.89831 0.10917 0.35497 0.92 94.9
a For catchment size below 1,000 km2 (includes 60 catchments)
b For catchment size above 1,000 km2 (includes 21 catchments)
Development of Regional Non-dimensional Return Period Flood Model 1435

and L-KR calculated for individual catchment [calibrated at Case 4]; and the
observed QT -values are compared with the goodness-of-fit criteria.
Here, it is noted that since there was only one discordant site in the region, viz.,
Sub-zone3b, the model could not be tested for the case without discordant data. The
computed QT -values for the above three cases were also compared with the regional
flood formula developed for Sub-zone 3b, by Kumar et al. (1999), as shown in
Table 5. It is observed that COD and efficiency (EFF) values are quite high for cases
1 and 3, but these are low for case 2.

5 Discussion

To evaluate the performance of the proposed model for estimating the flood
quantiles for ungauged catchments in a region, the parameters of the power form
model Eq. 2 which relates the flood quantiles with the non-dimensional variables
formed using annual peak flow data, and catchment physiographic features, were
determined. The model was calibrated for six different cases and validated on a
gauged catchment assuming it as ungauged. The performance of the model was
evaluated using two goodness-of-fit measures: COD and EFF (%). The proposed
return period flood model performed well for the whole study area when L-CV, L-
SK, and L-KR of individual catchments were considered. The performance improved
after removing the large sized catchments with area more than 1,000 km2 . It,
however, unexpectedly did not improve even after the removal of discordant sites.
The homogeneity test (Table 2) revealed the study area as a whole to be heteroge-
neous. The computed values of a2 and a3 -parameters (Table 4) were relatively high
for all the cases. The latter leads to infer that QT -values are more sensitive to π4
and π5 terms. It is also for the reason that the values of COD and efficiency slightly
decreased (Table 4) when regional L-moment ratios were used in Eq. 3, instead of
individual L-moment ratios for the catchment.
For Upper Ganga and Mahanadi regions the calibrated parameters (Table 4)
for case 1 were used with individual L-moment ratios to calculate the return period
flood. In the second case, regional L-moment ratios were used and in the third
and fourth cases, the calculations were repeated for the above cases, after re-
moving the discordant sites. The values of COD and efficiency (Table 6) indicate
an improved model performance after removing the discordant sites, irrespective
of usage of individual or regional parameters for return period flood computation.

Table 5 Validation of the proposed model with observed data of Lower Narmada and Tapi (Sub-
zone 3b) and with regional flood formula (Kumar et al. 1999)
Cases For the Validation with regional formula (Kumar et al. 1999)
observed data Return period (T) in years
50 100 200 500 1000
COD EFF COD EFF COD EFF COD EFF COD EFF COD EFF
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
1 0.94 97 0.98 95 0.98 93 0.98 92 0.98 85 0.98 76
2 0.72 80 0.65 60 0.65 61 0.65 56 0.65 47 0.65 34
3 0.93 94 0.94 94 0.94 92 0.94 91 0.94 85 0.94 79
1436 P.K. Bhunya et al.

Table 6 Performance of model for two test catchments

Cases Data used Upper Ganga region Mahanadi region
R2 EFF (%) R2 EFF (%)
1 For individual catchments 0.95 90 0.96 94
2 Regional values 0.92 89 0.78 72
3 Case 1 without discordant sites 0.96 97 0.98 96
4 Case 2 without discordant sites 0.98 89 0.79 72

Figures 3 and 4 show a reasonable agreement between the observed QT and com-
puted QT -values for both the regions. The model, however, overestimates the higher
peaks, but only marginally, for case 4.
The performances of the proposed model for Upper Ganga and Mahanadi regions
were also tested in terms of predicting observed return period flood in these regions.
The details of the performances for the respective regions are presented in Tables 7a
and b, which show a decrease in π4 , π5 and π6 values for cases 2 and 4. The respective
percentage decrease relative to corresponding values of case 1 is estimated as 39,
45, and 50 for Upper Ganga region; and 29, 51, and 46 for Mahanadi catchment.
The corresponding deviation in return period flood computation is −5.6, −10.3
and −34.5, −39%, respectively. Though it is difficult to establish a trend of QT -
variation with change in any of the above π-terms, both the Upper Ganga region
and Mahanadi sub-zone have underestimated the QT -estimates. However, non-
dimensional terms defined by the L-moment ratios tend to decrease for the regional
estimates and for cases with removal of discordant stations, and this aspect is found
to influence the QT -estimates substantially.
Based on the above results, the two models are proposed as follows:
     0.3550
QT π6 0.4551 π4 1.2211 1
= 0.8732 1 + 1+ (π5 ) 0.8983
(π2 ) 0.10917
(1 − π1 )
Qav π2 π5 π1
(8)

Fig. 3 Agreement between 7

predicted and validated Q for
2, 5, 10, 50 and 100 year return Lines of 95%
flood for Ganga region 6
confidence
5
Qobs/QM

4 Line of perfect
agreement
3

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Qest/Qm
Development of Regional Non-dimensional Return Period Flood Model 1437

Fig. 4 Agreement between 25 Line of 95 %

predicted and validated Q for , confidence
2,5, 10, 50 and 100 year return
flood for Mahanadi region
20

15

Qobs/Qm
Line of perfect
10 agreement

0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Qest/Qm

     0.3550
QT π6 0.4553 π4 1.241 1
= 0.8612 1 + 1+ (π5 )0.8983 (π2 )0.10917 (1 − π1 )
Qav π2 π5 π1
(9)
Here, it is worth emphasizing that the same functional (power) form of equations
holds for all catchments. In addition, Eq. 8 which is useful for a catchment in the study
region is preferred to Eq. 9, if catchment area is less than 1,000 km2 . The following
examples shows using these equations under various conditions of data availability.

5.1 Case 1: With the Complete Range of Available Data

A typical example of 14-year annual peak flood data observed at Branch No. 476/1 of
Sub-zone 3b (India) is considered for demonstrating the utility of Eq. 8, as follows.
Annual peak data in m3 /s: 590, 515, 490, 460, 430, 400, 290, 250, 220, 195, 100, 82,
50, 45

Table 7 Performance of the proposed model for a catchment

Cases π4 π5 π6 T (years) Observed Computed Deviation of
Q (m3 /s) Q (m3 /s) computed Q (%)
Upper Ganga region (1e sub-zone)
1 0.267 0.199 0.473 30.8 12985 15057.9 16.0
2 0.237 0.278 0.256 32.8 12985 12254.6 −5.6
3 0.267 0.199 0.473 30.8 12985 15057.9 16.0
4 0.201 0.228 0.218 32.8 12985 10343.7 −20.3
Mahanadi region (3d sub-zone)
1 0.517 0.528 0.311 32.31 4550 5199 14.3
2 0.364 0.256 0.166 32.31 4550 2983 −34.5
3 0.517 0.528 0.311 32.31 4550 5199 14.3
4 0.344 0.232 0.154 32.31 4550 2775 −39.0
1438 P.K. Bhunya et al.

Length of the main stream = 22.54 km; area of the catchment = 101 km2 ;
maximum observed annual peak flow = 590 m3 /s and corresponding T = (14 +
0.12)/(1-0.44) = 25.21 years (from Eq. 4). The non-dimensional terms of Eqs. 1a,
1b, 1c, 1d, 1e, and 1f for the catchment can be estimated as: π1 = 1/T = 0.0397,
π2 = 0.199, π4 = 0.376, π5 = 0.022, π6 = −0.065. Average of peak flow series for
the catchment Qav = 294.1 m3 /s Eq. 8 and the flow computed for T = 25.21 years is
604.4 m3 /s, derived with a difference of 3.5% with the observed Q. Using regional
formulae for Sub-zone 3b (Kumar et al. 1999), the computed flow for T = 25.21 years
is 792 m3 /s, showing a difference of 34%.

5.2 Case 2: With the Partial Range of Available Data

The same example problem after removing the two highest annual peak floods from
the 14-year series of case 1 is considered. For the changed peak flow series, π4 =
0.398, π5 = 0.157, and π6 = 0.003.Qav is determined using the available regional Qav –
A relationship for the region (Central Water Commission 1982a,b, 1987):
Qav = 127.82 1n (A) − 310.12 (10)
3 2
where Qav is in m /s and A is km .
From Eq. 10, Qav = 279 m3 /s and from Eq. 8, the flow computed for T = 25.21 years
is 550 m3 /s, exhibiting a difference of 6.8% with the observed Q.

5.3 Case 3: No Data Available

In the case of no data availability for the catchment under study, Eq. 8 can be
utilized to compute the peak flood of T = 25.21 years. For this case, π1 = 0.0397, π2 =
0.199, and regional L-moment ratios Eq. 5 for Sub-zone 3b are estimated as: π4 =
0.235, π5 = 0.362, π6 = 0.163.Qav = 279 m3 / s from Eq. 10, and from Eq. 8, the flow
computed for T = 25.21 years is 598.8 m3 /s, showing a difference of 1.49% with the
observed Q.

6 Conclusions

A non-dimensional return flood model in the form of Eq. 2 was developed. The
model was found to be capable of predicting the return period flood with a fair degree
of accuracy for widely spread 100 Indian catchments. The derived equation was
related with the return period using annual peak flood series and geomorphological
parameters. The calibrated model Eq. 8 performed well for catchments of less than
1,000 km2 in area. Using regional parameters of the nearby region, the model com-
puted fairly accurately the return period flood of ungauged catchments. The model
performance declined when non-dimensional variables of Eq. 5 were computed using
the regional L-moments. It is because of the reason that the regional parameters were
unable to represent the individual catchments correctly. The performance, however,
improved when regional L-moment ratios were used for individual homogeneous
regions.

Acknowledgment The authors gratefully acknowledge J.R.Hosking, IBM Research Division, New
York, U.S.A., for providing useful material along with a FORTRAN subroutine for this study.
Development of Regional Non-dimensional Return Period Flood Model 1439

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