Flood frequency analysis of southern Africa: II. Identification of regional distributions

Abstract

Regional frequency analysis of annual maximum flood data comprising 407 stations from 11 countries of southern Africa is presented. Forty-one homogeneous regions are identified. The L-moments of the observed data indicate that the possible underlying frequency distributions are Pearson type 3 (P3), lognormal 3-parameter (LN3), General Pareto (GPA) or General Extreme Value (GEV). Simulation experiments for the selection of the most suitable flood frequency procedure indicate that Pearson type 3/Probability Weighted Moments (P3/PWM) and log-Pearson type 3/Method of Moments (LP3/MOM) are suitable procedures for the region. © 2000 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.