Incorporating Daily Rainfall to Derive At-Site Hourly Depth-Duration-Frequency Relationships

Abstract

Two models are herein presented to derive at-site hourly based rainfall depth-duration-frequency (DDF) relationships by incorporating daily rainfall information. The model development is motivated by the desire to utilize daily rainfall data that are in existence prior to the conversion from a manned gauge to an automatic one for improving the establishment of hourly based rainfall DDF relation at the site. The performance of the proposed models is assessed by comparing the rainfall DDF relationships derived from the conventional method using solely annual maximum rainfalls of various durations. Hourly rainfall data at Hong Kong Observatory over the period of 1884–1990 are used to demonstrate the application of the two proposed models and to examine their performance. Results from the numerical experiments show that the two proposed models, which incorporate daily rainfall data, are capable of producing more accurate and reliable rainfall DDF relationships than the conventional method solely on the basis of annual maximum hourly rainfalls.