Practical extreme value modelling of hydrological floods and droughts: a case study (Q2488442)

Stream observations of the river Hä in south-west Norway are analyzed. Distributions of flood extremes and drought durations are fitted by Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) and Generalized Pareto (GP) distributions. The maximum likelihood (ML), probability weighted moments (PWG), and penalized maximum likelihood (PML) estimates are applied. Bootstrap confidence intervals are evaluated. The Akaike information criterion is used to decide if there is seasonality and/or trend in the model. It is found that a long-term trend is present for drought data but not for floods. For droughts the estimation method was important whereas for floods there were only minor differences between estimates.