Non-Stationary Hydrologic Frequency Analysis using B-Splines Quantile Regression

Abstract:

Hydrologic frequency analysis is commonly used by engineers and hydrologists to provide the basic information on planning, design and management of hydraulic structures and water resources system under the assumption of stationarity. However, with increasing evidence of changing climate, it is possible that the assumption of stationarity would no longer be valid and the results of conventional analysis would become questionable. In this study, we consider a framework for frequency analysis of extreme flows based on B-Splines quantile regression, which allows to model non-stationary data that have a dependence on covariates. Such covariates may have linear or nonlinear dependence. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is used to estimate quantiles and their posterior distributions. A coefficient of determination for quantiles regression is proposed to evaluate the estimation of the proposed model for each quantile level. The method is applied on annual maximum and minimum streamflow records in Ontario, Canada. Climate indices are considered to describe the non-stationarity in these variables and to estimate the quantiles in this case. The results show large differences between the non-stationary quantiles and their stationary equivalents for annual maximum and minimum discharge with high annual non-exceedance probabilities.

Keywords: Quantile regression, B-Splines functions, MCMC, Streamflow, Climate indices, non-stationarity.