Streamflow Characteristics

Book excerpt: Reliable estimates of streamflow characteristics are needed for planning, design, and operation of works for providing water supplies and for protection from flooding. This book brings together some of the most useful estimation methods - those that are simple, practical, and require only commonly available or readily obtainable data, and which give results comparable in accuracy with those derived from more sophisticated methods. The author describes how streamflow data are collected, how the characteristics are computed, how they are changed by man's activities, and how they are used in planning and design. Chapters describing statistical principles and techniques, and the effects of various climatic and physiographic factors on streamflow are included. The analytical methods are described in sufficient detail that the reader can apply them to his data. Further applications and other techniques are referred to in bibliographies.