Development of intensity duration frequency curves using L- moment and GIS technique

Abstract

The rainfall Intensity Duration Frequency (IDF) relationship is one of the most commonly used tools in water resources engineering for planning, designing or operation of water resources projects. The establishment of such relationship was done in 1932. Since then, many sets of relationships have been developed in different parts of the globe. In the present paper rainfall dada of 14 raingauge stations of Punpun basin located in Bihar was taken for regional rainfall frequency analysis based on L-moment approach facilitated to find the robust distribution for these daily raingauge stations having data availability of 9-17 years. The robust distribution was used to find the IDF relationship and curves for short duration rainfall for Punpun basin. From the IDF curves parameters of empirical equations for the gauged locations were determined and contour maps were generated. IDF curves for ungauged locations were developed from the generated contour maps using GIS and finally a generalized IDF curve incorporating return period and the duration of rainfall for particular station was developed.