Regional frequency analysis of autumnal floods in the province of Quebec, Canada

• Published in: Natural hazards (Dordrecht) Vol. 59; no. 2; pp. 681 - 698
• Main Authors: Martel, B., Ouarda, T. B. M. J., Barbet, M., Bruneau, P., Latraverse, M., Kamali Nezhad, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.11.2011; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Autumn; Basins; Civil Engineering; Correlation analysis; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Engineering and environment geology. Geothermics; Environmental Management; Estimating techniques; Exact sciences and technology; Flood frequency; Flood peak; Floods; Frequency analysis; Freshwater; Geophysics/Geodesy; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Hydrogeology; Lakes; Mathematical models; Natural Hazards; Natural hazards: prediction, damages, etc; Original Paper; Quantiles; Regional; Risk assessment; Snowmelt; Springs; Stations; Canada; Quebec; Eastern Canada; Quebec Canada; Regional flood frequency estimation; Canonical correlation analysis; Kriging; floods; models; springs; kriging; adaptation; North America; lead; frequency; correlation; temperature; lakes; performances
• ISSN: 0921-030X; 1573-0840
• DOI: 10.1007/s11069-011-9789-5

A large number of models have been proposed over the last years for regional flood frequency analysis in northern regions. However, these models dealt generally with snowmelt-caused spring floods. This paper deals with the adaptation, application, and comparison of two regional frequency analysis methods, canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and universal canonical kriging (UCK), on autumnal floods of 29 stations from the Côte-Nord region (QC, Canada). Three possible periods during which autumnal floods can take place are tested. The absolute and specific flood peak and volume quantiles are also studied. A jack-knife resampling procedure is applied to compare the performance of each model according to the selected period and the type of quantile. The period of September 1st to December 15th is found to be optimal to represent autumnal floods and specific quantiles were shown to lead to better results than absolute quantiles. Variables that explain best the autumnal floods are the basin area, the fraction of the area covered with lakes, and the average of mean July, August, and September maximal temperatures. The CCA model performs slightly better than UCK.