Abstract
Relationships between watershed characteristics and mean wadi flood peaks in arid regions are investi- gated. Mean flood peak discharge was derived for 12 watersheds ranging from 64 to 1730 km 2 in Oman using 270 flood events from 10 years of record. Fourteen watershed characteristics were automatically extracted from a digital elevation model, and multiple regression was used to investigate the effect of these characteristics on wadi mean peak flow (Q MPF) and 5-, 10-, 20-, 50- and 100-year return period flood peaks. Drainage area (DA), wadi slope (WS), watershed mean elevation (BE) and agricultural/farm area (FR) were found to be the key variables affecting flood flows. As return period increased, the influence of BE on flood-peak estimation decreased. In addition, urbanization is increasing alongside increasing agricultural areas, and the inclusion of FR in the relationship improved the variance explanation by 11% over models using only traditional variables such as DA and BE.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 377-393 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Hydrological Sciences Journal |
Volume | 55 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- Arid environments
- Flood frequency analysis
- Gis
- Mean peak flows
- Multiple regression analysis
- Wadi
- Watershed characteristics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Water Science and Technology