Case Study

Coincidence Risk Analysis of Floods Using Multivariate

Copulas: Case Study of Jinsha River and Min River, China
Yang Peng 1; Yulong Shi 2; Hongxiang Yan, Ph.D. 3; Kai Chen 4; and Jipeng Zhang 5

Abstract: The coincidence of floods on a mainstem and its tributaries may cause significant flood damage downstream of the confluence.
In this study, the coincidence risks of annual maximum (AM) floods on Jinsha River and Min River, China, were analyzed using multivariate
copulas based on both systematic records and available historical information. Archimedean and elliptical copulas were selected to establish
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the joint distributions of flood magnitudes and occurrence dates of the two rivers. The coincidence probabilities of AM floods were inves-
tigated and compared with monthly maximum floods. The results show that the coincidence probabilities of AM flood magnitudes and
occurrence dates are much less than those of monthly maximum floods. Higher coincidence probabilities of AM flood occurrence dates
occur in the period from mid-June to early September with three coincidence peaks, while there is only one coincidence peak in each month
for monthly maximum floods. Ignoring historical flood information would underestimate the coincidence probabilities of flood magnitudes.
The results can provide decision support for cascade reservoir operation on Jinsha River and flood mitigation downstream. DOI: 10.1061/
(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0001744. © 2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Flood coincidence risk; Copula function; Joint distribution; Flood magnitude; Flood occurrence date; Historical flood.

Introduction The simultaneous occurrence of large floods on a mainstem and

Floods account for about 40% of all natural hazards worldwide
and one half of deaths caused by natural disasters (Jonkman and
Vrijling 2008; Di Baldassarre et al. 2009). Under anthropogenic
climate change and land-use and land-cover change, there has been
an increasing vulnerability of flood-prone areas and a growing
number of people located in flood risk zones (Yan and Edwards
2013; Hirabayashi et al. 2013; Kundzewicz et al. 2014; Ceola
et al. 2014). Flood risk analysis using a statistical method to quan-
tify flood frequency and damages is a standard approach in flood
risk management (IACWD 1982; Stedinger and Griffis 2008;
Merz et al. 2010). Traditionally, this approach is implemented as
either on-site (i.e., Bulletin 17B and the emerging Bulletin 17C)
or regional frequency analysis (Stedinger and Tasker 1985; Burn
1990; Hosking and Wallis 1997; Viglione et al. 2013; Yan and
Moradkhani 2015, 2016). However, the risk analysis of combined
floods at the confluence of a mainstem and a major tributary de-
mands special treatment because the individual floods are highly
dependent on each other (Wang et al. 2009; Chen et al. 2012).
1
Professor, School of Renewable Energy, North China Electric Power
Univ., Beijing 102206, China (corresponding author). Email: pengyang@
ncepu.edu.cn
2 flooding (Zhang and Singh 2006; Klein et al. 2010; Li et al.
Postgraduate Student, School of Renewable Energy, North China
Electric Power Univ., Beijing 102206, China. Email: shiyulong@ncepu
.edu.cn
3
Hydrology Technical Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,
Richland, WA 99354. Email: hongxiang.yan@pnnl.gov
4
Postgraduate Student, School of Renewable Energy, North China
Electric Power Univ., Beijing 102206, China. Email: chenkai2014@ncepu
.edu.cn
5
Postgraduate Student, School of Renewable Energy, North China
Electric Power Univ., Beijing 102206, China. Email: zhangjipeng@ncepu
.edu.cn
Note. This manuscript was submitted on February 19, 2018; approved
on August 20, 2018; published online on November 30, 2018. Discussion
period open until April 30, 2019; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Hydrologic En-
gineering, © ASCE, ISSN 1084-0699.
its tributary can cause significant flood damages downstream of the
confluence (Ganguli and Reddy 2013). The risk analysis of coinci-
dence flood involves flows in the mainstem and its tributary, which
can be regarded as a multivariable frequency combination problem
and solved using a multivariate analysis method. In previous inves-
tigations, this was often done by estimating the joint distribution of
two random flow variables of a mainstem and its tributary (Ang and
Tang 2006; Prohaska et al. 2008). The joint probability distribution
of independent random variables can be calculated by convolution
formulas (Gumbel 1961). For two correlated random variables, bi-
variate distributions are analyzed by assuming that two random var-
iables follow the same marginal distribution. The forms of bivariate
distribution used by previous investigators include normal (Sackl
and Bergmann 1987; Chang et al. 1994; Goel et al. 1998; Yue 1999;
Prohaska and Ilic 2010), lognormal (Hiemstra et al. 1976; Yue
2000), exponential (Singh and Singh 1991), extreme value (Yue
2001a; Shiau 2003; Escalante 2007), and gamma (Yue 2001b).
However, it is very difficult to extend bivariate distributions to
multivariate cases (Chen et al. 2012).
Recently, copula functions have been widely applied in the field
of hydrology as an important tool in multivariate statistical analysis
and correlation analysis. Frequency analyses were performed on
2013; Fan et al. 2016), rainfall (Singh and Zhang 2007; Kao and
Govindaraju 2008; Zhang and Singh 2012), drought (Shiau 2006;
Song and Singh 2010; Mirabbasi et al. 2012; Madadgar and
Moradkhani 2011, 2013; AghaKouchak et al. 2014; Yan et al.
2017), and flood coincidence (Favre et al. 2004; Xiong et al.
2005; Wang et al. 2009; Yan et al. 2010, 2013; Chen et al. 2011,
2012). Compared to the bivariate distribution approach, the copula
function has the capacity to model outcomes generated from any
marginal distribution and relaxes the assumption of the same mar-
ginal distribution (Wang et al. 2009; Salvadori and Michele 2013).
For the flood coincidence risk analysis case, Favre et al. (2004)
used a copula function to analyze the combined risk of flooding of a
mainstem and its tributary and estimate the conditional probability of
the volume for a specific flow value. Xiong et al. (2005) employed a

© ASCE 05018030-1 J. Hydrol. Eng.

J. Hydrol. Eng., 2019, 24(2): 05018030

 copula function to establish the joint distribution function of annual
maximum (AM) floods at two neighboring hydrological stations on a
river. Wang et al. (2009) presented a copula-based flood frequency
framework for evaluating flood risk at confluences with any type of
marginal distributions. Peng et al. (2017) proposed a copula Monte
Carlo (CMC) method to improve flood risk analysis for confluence
flooding control downstream of a reservoir, considering the effects of
reservoir operation and joint relationships between flows. These
studies indicate that the copula method is an effective tool for the
flood risk analysis of coincidence floods, although the research
mainly focused on flood magnitudes, while the coincidence risk
of flood occurrence time was not addressed. Recently, Yan et al.
(2010, 2013) analyzed the flood coincidence risk of the Yangtze
River and Qing River by multiplying the joint distributions of flood
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peak by the occurrence date of the two rivers, based on the
assumption that the floods on the two rivers were independent. How-
ever, this implicit assumption is violated because streamflows are
structured by the hydrologic network and have strong spatial depend-
ence. As an alternative, Chen et al. (2012) used a multivariate copula
function to estimate the coincidence of flood risk by considering both
flood magnitude and occurrence time. Although this approach can be
used to simultaneously estimate the coincidence probabilities of
flood magnitude and occurrence time, ignoring historical flood data
may lead to underestimate or overestimate the coincidence flood risk
(Reis and Stedinger 2005; Merz and Blöschl 2008a, b; Yan and
Moradkhani 2015). Therefore, coincidence flood risk analysis of
a river mainstem and its tributary needs to be improved.
The objective of this article is to present a copula-based method
for estimating the coincidence risk of floods on a mainstem and its
tributary through a multivariate copula. In the method, factors con-
sidered include flood magnitude, occurrence time, and spatial corre-
lation. For the coincidence flood risk analysis, effective flood data
were collected and used, including systematic records and available
historical information. A case study on Jinsha River and Min River,
China, is also presented to demonstrate the method developed in
this study.
Study Area and Data
Jinsha River Basin is the upper watershed of the Yangtze River,
which flows through eastern Tibet and southwestern China. Jinsha
River flood events are commonly caused by snowmelt or heavy
Fig. 1. Locations of studied rivers and hydrological stations.
© ASCE 05018030-2
J. Hydrol. Eng., 2019, 24(2): 05018030
rainstorms, and the dominant flood-generating mechanism is a
heavy rainstorm. Affected by the southwest monsoon in the Indian
Ocean and the southeast monsoon in the Pacific Ocean, large floods
on the Jinsha River often occur in the July–September period. The
Min River, a branch of the Jinsha River, mingles with the Jinsha
River at Yibin city in Sichuan Province, approximately 31.8 km
downstream of the Xiangjiaba hydropower project. Like the Jinsha
River, large floods on the Min River always occur during the months
of July through August. Therefore, the coincidence of floods on the
Jinsha and Min Rivers has significant impacts on the operation of
Xiluodu-Xiangjiaba cascade reservoirs for the flood control safety
downstream of the confluence (Peng et al. 2017). However, very
few studies have been conducted to investigate the coincidence risk
of floods on the two rivers. Xiao (2001) and Wang et al. (2014)
counted the coincidence number of floods on the Jinsha and Min
Rivers based on the measured data but did not quantitatively esti-
mate the coincidence probability of design floods. Chen et al. (2011)
used a copula method to analyze the coincidence risks of AM floods
of the Jinsha and Min Rivers within a time interval of
4 days based
on the systematic AM floods in the period 1951–2007. In this study,
the coincidence risk of AM flood magnitudes and occurrence dates
of the Jinsha and Min Rivers occurring on a daily basis were esti-
mated by their copula-based joint distribution based on systematic
flood records and available historical data. The daily results were
compared with those of monthly floods.
The streamflow data used in this study were acquired from two
hydrological stations, Pingshan and Gaochang, which are located
on the Jinsha and Min Rivers, respectively. The locations of the
rivers and hydrological stations are shown in Fig. 1. The drainage
areas of the two stations are 458,592 and 135,378 km2 , respectively
(Xu and Tong 2012). The AM flood series and the corresponding
occurrence dates are then extracted from the daily average stream-
flow records at the stations during the period 1950–2010, a 61-year
record, as presented in Fig. 2. Detailed data are given in Appendix I.
Discharges, runoff volumes, and AM floods are analyzed and
summarized in Table 1. Of 61 pairs of annual flood peaks of the
Jinsha and Min Rivers, 7 occurred concurrently within a time frame
of
3 days. However, only one pair occurred on the same day,
i.e., September 1, 1966.
In addition to the 61-year record, historical flood events were
also incorporated into this analysis. The peak discharges and
occurrence dates of historical floods (CWRC 1996; Wang 1999;
J. Hydrol. Eng.
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Fig. 2. Time series of annual maximum (AM) flood peak and corresponding occurrence date for Jinsha and Min Rivers during period 1950–2010:
(a) AM flood peak; and (b) occurrence date of AM flood.

Table 1. Characteristic values of annual daily discharge, runoff, and annual maximum flood on Jinsha and Min Rivers, 1950–2010
Average annual Average annual Maximum AM flood
daily discharge runoff volume Average AM flood
River Station (m3 =s) (108 m3 ) Magnitude (m3 =s) Occurrence date (m3 =s)
Jinsha Pingshan 4,567 1,436 28,600 September 1, 1966 17,871
Min Gaochang 2,711 846.6 31,400 June 29, 1961 17,068

Table 2. Investigated historical floods on Jinsha and Min Rivers Sklar 1983), a multivariate distribution can be written in a copula
Peak discharge and its univariate marginal distributions as
River (m3 =s) Occurrence date
Fðx1 ; x2 ; : : : ; xn Þ ¼ Cθ ðFX1 ðx1 Þ; FX2 ðx2 Þ; : : : ; FXn ðxn ÞÞ
Jinsha 36,900 Mid-September 1924
35,300 July 17, 1860 ¼ Cθ ðu1 ; u2 ; : : : ; un Þ ð1Þ
35,000 July 1892
34,300 August 1905
where Fð·Þ is an n-dimensional distribution function; ui ¼ FXi ðxi Þ
31,100 September 21, 1813
36,900 Late September 1637
is a marginal distribution of random variable X i ; and θ is a copula
parameter to be estimated. If these marginal distributions are con-
Min 51,000 July 18–22, 1917 tinuous, the copula function Cθ ð·Þ can be written (Sraj et al. 2015)
40,800 July 1931
Cθ ðu1 ; u2 ; : : : ; un Þ ¼ FðF−1 −1 −1
X1 ðu1 Þ; FX 2 ðu2 Þ; : : : ; FX n ðun ÞÞ ð2Þ

where F−1X i ð·Þ = inverse function of FX i ð·Þ.

Xiao and Zhao 2002; Chen 2014) are listed in Table 2. Because
the specific occurrence dates of several historical flood events
are not available, the historical floods were used only to establish
the marginal distribution of AM flood magnitude for coincidence
analysis.
Methodology
Joint Distribution Based on Copula Functions
Copulas can be used to construct multivariate distributions (Joe
1997; Nelsen 2006). Based on Sklar’s theorem (Schweizer and
The elliptical and Archimedean copulas are the two major
copula families widely used in practice (Nelsen 2006). The Archi-
medean copulas are widely used in hydrologic frequency analysis
because they are easy to generate and capable of capturing a wide
range of dependency structures with several desirable properties,
such as symmetry and associativity (Nelsen 2006). The key advan-
tage of the elliptical copula is that one can specify different levels
of correlation between the marginals. In the present study, the
Gumbel–Hougaard (GH) (Hougaard 1986), Clayton (Clayton
1978), Ali–Mikhail–Haq (Ali et al. 1978), and Frank (Frank 1979)
copulas from the Archimedean family and Gaussian and Student
t copulas from the elliptical family are considered for modeling
the dependence of floods between a mainstem and its tributary.

© ASCE 05018030-3 J. Hydrol. Eng.

J. Hydrol. Eng., 2019, 24(2): 05018030

 Some basic characteristics of the applied single-parameter bivariate In the process of evaluating the performance of marginal and
copulas are presented in Appendix II. joint distributions, the observed probabilities were obtained first.
For AM flood series, including k historical floods and s − c sys-
tematic records, the observed probabilities of flood peaks can be
Marginal Distributions of Flood Magnitudes and computed as
Occurrence Dates
Many parametric distributions can be used to estimate flood frequen- Pi ¼ Pðx ≥ xi Þ
8
cies from observed annual flood series, for example, the Pearson >
>
i
<Ph ðiÞ ¼ i ¼ 1; : : : ; m
Type III (P-III) in China (MWR 2006), Log-Pearson Type III nþ1
(LP-III) in the USA (Griffis and Stedinger 2007; Stedinger and ¼
>
> i
Griffis 2008), the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution in :Ps ðiÞ ¼ Ph ðmÞ þ ½1 − Ph ðmÞ × i ¼ 1; : : : ; s − c
s−cþ1
the UK (Sinclair and Ahmad, 1988), gamma-type distribution (Yue
2001b), and lognormal distribution (Yue 2000). In this study, the ð6Þ
P-III distribution was used to qualify the marginal distribution of
where Pi = exceedance probability; Ph ðiÞ = observed probability of
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flood magnitude, for which the probability density function (pdf)

is expressed as
βα
f P ðxÞ ¼ ðx − δÞα−1 exp½−βðx − δÞ α > 0; β > 0; δ < x < ∞
ΓðαÞ
ð3Þ
where Γð·Þ = gamma function; and α, β, and δ = shape, scale, and
location parameters, respectively.
The log-likelihood function for Eq. (3) with the incorporation of
historical information can be described as
X
s−c X
m
Lðα; β; δÞ ¼ log fP ðxi Þ þ log f P ðgj Þ
i¼1 j¼1
where xi = systematic data of marginal distribution of flood peak;
and gj ¼ m largest floods of flood peak’s marginal distribution with
the same years of occurrence. The first stage of the modified infer-
ence functions for margins (MIFM) method (Li et al. 2013) can be
used to estimate the parameters in Eq. (4).
As flooding occurs periodically, the dates of flood occurrence
can be regarded as directional data with periodicity. The von Mises
distribution is often used to describe the distribution of a directional
variable with a single peak (Fisher 1993; Mardia and Jupp 2009).
For an AM flood with multiple peaks, the probability distribution
of its occurrence dates can be described by a mixed von Mises dis-
tribution, which is composed of a finite mixture of von Mises dis-
tributions. The probability distribution function for a mixture of n
von Mises distributions can be written
X
n
pi
fP ðxÞ ¼ exp½ki cosðx − ui Þ; 0 ≤ x ≤ 2π
2πI 0 ðki Þ
i¼1
where i = each component of mixed von Mises distribution; pi =
mixing proportion; ui and ki = mean direction and concentration
parameters; and ki > 0; I 0 ðki Þ = modified Bessel function of
order 0. The maximum likelihood method (Michael and Stan 2013)
can be used to estimate the parameters in Eq. (5).
Goodness-of-Fit Statistical Tests
Goodness-of-fit statistic tests were conducted to evaluate the
performance of the marginal and joint probabilities. In this
study, the root-mean-square error (RMSE), chi-squared (χ2 ), and
Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) goodness-of-fit tests were employed
to evaluate the performance of the marginal distributions obtained
through parametric distributions. A Rosenblatt transformation
(Rosenblatt 1952) was employed to evaluate the performance of
joint distributions in describing the dependency between the Jinsha
and Min Rivers.
largest floods for i ¼ 1; : : : ; m, in which m = total number of largest
flood in a period of n years; n = total length of studied flood series
including both systematic records and historical floods; Ps ðiÞ =
observed probability of systematic data for i ¼ 1; : : : ; s − c, in
which s = length of systematic records; and c = number of largest
flood occurring in the systematic records.
The observed nonexceedance joint probabilities can be obtained
using the Gringorten formula (Gringorten 1963), which is generally
recommended for modeling extreme flooding events (Cunnane
1978; Hirsch 1987; Hirsch and Stedinger 1987; Guo 1990; Yue
et al. 1999; Zhang 2005; Zhang and Singh 2007; Fang et al. 2008;
Karmakar and Simonovic 2009; Huang et al. 2014). Because there
ð4Þ were no paired records in historical floods of the Jinsha and Min
Rivers, the observed nonexceedance joint probabilities in this paper
were estimated based on the systematic data as
Pi Pi
n − 0.44
Hðxi ; yi Þ ¼ PðX ≤ xi ; Y ≤ yi Þ ¼ m¼1 l¼1 ml ð7Þ
N þ 0.12
where ðxi ; yi Þ = combination of observed values of X and Y
arranged in ascending order in data set of N observations; and
nml = number of ðxi ; yi Þ counted as xj ≤ xi and yj ≤ yi ,
i ¼ 1; 2; : : : ; N, 1 ≤ j ≤ i. Note that for the joint probability of
flood magnitudes, X and Y stand for QJ and QM , respectively;
for the joint probability of flood occurrence dates, X and Y stand
for T J and T M , respectively.
RMSE is a frequently used measure of the difference between
probabilities obtained from the fitted probability distribution and
observed frequencies based on sample data, and its value can be
obtained by
ð5Þ vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u N
u1 X
RMSE ¼ t ðPest − Pobs i Þ
2 ð8Þ
N i¼1 i
where N = sample size; Pest = simulated probability from fitted
i
probability distribution; and Pobs = observed probability obtained
i
based on sample data. As shown in Eq. (8), RMSE is dimensionless.
The χ2 test statistic can be expressed as
ðZ1 − np1 Þ2 ðZ2 − np2 Þ2 ðZ − npk Þ2
χ2 ¼ þ þ ··· þ k ð9Þ
np1 np2 npk
where p1 ; p2 ; : : : ; pk = probabilities hypothesized for k possible
outcomes; and Z1 ; Z2 ; : : : ; Zk = observed counts of each outcome
to be compared for expected counts np1 ; np2 ; : : : ; npk in n inde-
pendent trials.
The K-S test is a nonparametric probability distribution free test
(Zhang and Singh 2012) that quantifies the distance between the
estimated and empirical distributions (Massey 1951; Razali and

© ASCE 05018030-4 J. Hydrol. Eng.

J. Hydrol. Eng., 2019, 24(2): 05018030

 Wah 2011). For n increasing ordered data points, xð·Þ , the K-S test
statistic is defined as
Dn ¼ supx jF ðxÞ − Fn ðxÞj
where F ðxÞ = theoretical distribution; Fn ðxÞ = empirical distribu-
tion; and supx = supremum of set of distances.
For the goodness-of-fit test for the joint probability obtained
by copulas, the Rosenblatt transformation is recommended to
evaluate the copula performance (Genest et al. 2009), in which the
Cramér–von Mises statistic was adopted to test the performance of
the copulas with the corresponding p-values being approximated
through Monte Carlo simulation. The detailed procedures for per-
forming the Rosenblatt transformation can be found in the study by
Genest et al. (2009).
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Coincidence Risk Analysis of Floods
Coincidence Risk of Flood Occurrence Dates
The coincidence of flood occurrence dates means that the AM
floods of the mainstem and its tributary occur on the same day.
Therefore, the coincidence probability of AM flood occurrence
dates of the two rivers on the ith day (pit ) can be defined as
pit ¼ Pðti ≤ T M < tiþ1 ; ti ≤ T T < tiþ1 Þ
¼ FT ðti ; ti Þ þ FT ðtiþ1 ; tiþ1 Þ − FT ðtiþ1 ; ti Þ − FT ðti ; tiþ1 Þ
where FT ðti ; tj Þ = joint distribution function of occurrence dates of
the mainstem and its tributary; and T M and T T = occurrence dates
of AM floods on the mainstem and its tributary, respectively.
Coincidence Risk of Flood Magnitudes
When the combined flood discharge exceeds the safety discharge
downstream, coincidence floods can cause significant flood dam-
age downstream. However, if the floods of the mainstem and its
tributary do not occur on the same day or the interval of occurrence
dates is large, there is no coincidence flood risk. Therefore, the
coincidence risk of flood magnitude must be analyzed taking into
consideration the coincidence of flood occurrence dates. Assuming
that the flood occurrence date is independent of flood magnitude
(Chen et al. 2012), the coincidence probability of flood magnitudes
(P) in this paper is defined as
P ¼ P T × P P0
Fig. 3. Flowchart of proposed study.
© ASCE
J. Hydrol. Eng., 2019, 24(2): 05018030
where PT = coincidence probability of flood occurrence dates P on
the main river and its tributaries, which is expressed as PT ¼ pit ;
PP0 = probability of flood magnitudes of the mainstem and its tribu-
ð10Þ tary exceeding the design flood at a certain frequency P0, which can
be expressed as
 
PP0 ¼ P QM > qPM0 ; QT > qPT 0
      
¼ 1 − FQM qPM0 þ FQT qPT 0 − FQ qPM0 ; qPT 0 ð13Þ
in which QM and QT = AM flood peaks of mainstem and its
tributary, respectively; qPM0 and qPT 0 = peak discharges of design
floods at a certain frequency P on mainstem and its tributary, re-
spectively; FQM ðqPM0 Þ and FQT ðqPT 0 Þ = nonexceedance probabilities
of QM ≤ qPM0 and QT ≤ qPT 0 , respectively; and FQ ðqPM0 ; qPT 0 Þ =
nonexceedance joint probability of QM ≤ qPM0 and QT ≤ qPT 0 .
Substituting Eq. (13) into Eq. (12), the coincidence probability
(P) of flood magnitudes on the Jinsha and Min Rivers can be
written
P ¼ PT × P P 0
       
¼ PT × 1 − FQJ qPJ 0 þ FQM qPM0 − FQ qPJ 0 ; qPM0 ð14Þ
ð11Þ Analytical Procedure
Fig. 3 presents the flowchart of the proposed study. The copula
method can estimate the marginal and joint distributions in two sep-
arate processes, giving flexibility in selecting the marginal and joint
probabilistic models. In this study, the P-III and mixed von Mises
distributions were used to quantify the marginal distributions of
AM flood magnitudes and the occurrence dates on the Jinsha
and Min Rivers, respectively, compared with other distributions in-
cluding Gamma, GEV, lognormal, and LP-III distributions. Then
four commonly used Archimedean copulas and two elliptical cop-
ulas were used to model the bivariate joint cumulative distribution
functions (CDFs) of AM flood magnitudes and occurrence dates of
the two rivers, and the most appropriate copulas were identified
based on the Rosenblatt transformation with the Cramér–von Mises
statistic. Finally, the coincidence risk of the AM flood magnitudes
and occurrence dates were estimated from the established joint dis-
tribution, aimed at exploring potential reservoir flood control and
ð12Þ management practices once coincidence floods occurred.
05018030-5 J. Hydrol. Eng.
 Results and Discussion
Estimation of Marginal Distribution
To demonstrate the validity of the P-III and mixed von Mises dis-
tributions, other commonly used distributions, such as Gamma, gen-
eralized extreme value (GEV), lognormal, and LP-III distributions,
were selected as possible marginal distributions for AM flood peaks
and occurrence dates, and their parameters were obtained using the
maximum likelihood method. The expressions and the estimated
values of their associated parameters are listed in Appendix III.
Both chi-squared and K-S goodness-of-fit tests were performed
to evaluate the performance of these distributions, and the statistical
test results for AM flood peaks and occurrence dates of the two
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Exhibited in Fig. 6 are the frequency histograms of occurrence
dates of AM flood fitted by the mixed von Mises distribution. It
shows that the dates of AM flood occurrence on the Jinsha and Min
Rivers were not completely synchronous. According to the proba-
bility density of occurrence dates, in descending order, AM floods
of the Jinsha River mainly occur in early September, mid-August,
and late July, while Min River floods mainly occur during late July,
mid-August, and early July. Therefore, AM floods are more likely to
occur on the rivers simultaneously during the period from early July
to early September than during other periods.
For comparison, marginal distribution curves for AM flood
peaks without considering historical floods are also presented in
Fig. 4, in which the dotted line and the circles represent the fitted
P-III distribution and the observed probabilities based on the sys-

stations are presented in Table 3. Table 3 shows that the values of
chi-squared and K-S test statistics did not exceed their critical val-
ues at the 0.05 significance level, 5.99 and 0.174, which implies
that all the distributions performed well in quantifying the marginal
distributions of AM flood peaks and occurrence dates of the Jinsha
and Min Rivers. Furthermore, the values of RMSE were then
adopted to identify the most appropriate distributions for quantify-
ing the marginal distributions. As presented in Table 3, the P-III
distribution performed best in modeling the distributions of AM
flood peaks at the stations, and the mixed von Mises distribution
performed best in modeling the distributions of AM flood occur-
rence dates, as shown by the minimum RMSE values.
The fitted marginal distribution curves for AM flood peaks
and occurrence dates on the Jinsha and Min Rivers are presented
in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. It can be seen that the P-III and
mixed von Mises distributions performed well in simulating the
observed data.
tematic records, respectively. It can be seen that the exceedance
probabilities of floods greater than 20,000 m3 /s increased with the
consideration of historical floods.
A similar analysis of the marginal distribution of monthly maxi-
mum floods shows that the P-III distribution and Gaussian kernel
density performed best in modeling the distributions of monthly
flood magnitudes and occurrence dates, respectively. The RMSE
values of the probability distributions for monthly flood magni-
tudes and occurrence dates are shown in Table 4.
Joint Probability Distribution Using Copulas
The dependencies of flood magnitudes and occurrence dates be-
tween the Jinsha and Min Rivers were analyzed to estimate the joint
distribution. The estimates of the bivariate Kendall’s tau coefficients
of flood magnitudes and occurrence dates for AM sample series
were 0.103 and 0.153, respectively. This result indicates that the

Table 3. Statistical test results for marginal distributions of annual maximum flood peaks and occurrence dates
Flood peak Occurrence date
Pingshan Station Gaochang Station Pingshan Station Gaochang Station
2 2 2 2
Distribution χ Dn RMSE χ Dn RMSE χ Dn RMSE χ Dn RMSE
GEV 2.23 0.071 0.092 1.71 0.058 0.102 3.45 0.127 0.241 3.25 0.085 0.162
Gamma 4.72 0.116 0.158 2.57 0.137 0.134 2.23 0.145 0.152 3.68 0.138 0.184
Lognormal 2.64 0.077 0.075 4.14 0.074 0.093 4.12 0.082 0.168 3.54 0.127 0.173
P-III 3.26 0.062 0.041 3.49 0.066 0.065 3.33 0.092 0.186 2.31 0.112 0.195
LP-III 3.13 0.077 0.073 3.15 0.074 0.086 3.25 0.116 0.132 2.89 0.145 0.146
Mixed von Mises — — — — — — 3.58 0.047 0.019 3.15 0.058 0.018
Note: Dn = K-S statistics.

Fig. 4. Pearson Type III (P-III) distributions fitted to annual maximum flood data: (a) Jinsha River; and (b) Min River.

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Fig. 5. Mixed von Mises distributions fitted to observed occurrence date of annual maximum flood: (a) Jinsha River; and (b) Min River.

0.030 0.030
Sample data Sample data
0.025 Mixed von Mises distribution 0.025 Mixed von Mises distribution
Probability

Probability
0.020 0.020
0.015 0.015
0.010 0.010
0.005 0.005
0.000 0.000
Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct.
(a) Month (b) Month

Fig. 6. Histograms and probability densities of occurrence date of annual maximum flood: (a) Jinsha River; and (b) Min River.

Table 4. RMSE values of marginal distributions for monthly maximum copulas were estimated by the inversion of Kendall’s tau, and the
flood magnitudes and occurrence dates parameters of the two elliptical copulas were estimated using a
Flood peak Occurrence date maximum likelihood estimation method. Goodness-of-fit tests
were performed to select the most appropriate copula among the
Month Pingshan Gaochang Pingshan Gaochang
six candidate copulas. Table 5 shows the estimated parameters, the
June 0.045 0.056 0.039 0.041 corresponding Cramér–von Mises statistic Sn (Genest et al. 2009),
July 0.052 0.043 0.038 0.033 and the associated p-value of the six copulas. It can be seen that for
August 0.041 0.052 0.027 0.029
AM flood magnitudes and occurrence dates, the GH copula was
September 0.053 0.048 0.035 0.036
October 0.040 0.047 0.031 0.037 the best among the six copulas with the lowest Sn value and the
highest p-value. The RMSE values for the joint distributions ob-
tained through different copulas are also shown in Table 5. Based
on the values of RMSE, it is found that the GH copula was most
correlations of flood magnitudes and occurrence dates between the appropriate for modeling the joint distribution of the AM flood
two stations are positive. magnitudes and occurrence dates of the two rivers as indicated by
The six copulas from the Archimedean and elliptical families the minimum RMSE values, 0.058 and 0.053.
shown in Appendix II were used to construct the bivariate joint The joint CDFs fitted by the GH copula are presented in
CDFs for the AM flood magnitudes and occurrence dates on the Figs. 7(a and b). Fig. 7 shows that the joint CDF FQ ðqJ ; qM Þ had
Jinsha and Min Rivers. The parameters of the four Archimedean a convex surface in the shape of an abrupt rise, while the surface of

Table 5. Estimated values of copula parameter (θ̂), goodness-of-fit test: Cramér–von Mises criterion (Sn ), and associated p-value at 0.05 significance level
and RMSE
Flood magnitude Flood occurrence date
Copula θ̂ Sn p-value RMSE θ̂ Sn p-value RMSE
Ali-Mikhail-Haq 0.412 0.062 0.315 0.104 0.577 0.076 0.493 0.089
Gumbel-Hougaard 1.115 0.031 0.642 0.058 1.181 0.067 0.648 0.053
Frank 0.935 0.046 0.149 0.083 1.404 0.071 0.576 0.064
Clayton 0.230 0.053 0.312 0.076 0.361 0.086 0.350 0.068
Gaussian 0.244 0.042 0.536 0.108 0.201 0.084 0.374 0.083
Student t 0.212 0.039 0.481 0.093 0.223 0.078 0.559 0.063
Note: The lower Sn, higher p-value, and lower RMSE indicate a better copula model.

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Fig. 7. Joint distributions of annual maximum flood magnitudes (Q) and occurrence dates (T) of Jinsha River (QJ and T J ) and Min River (QJ and
T J ): (a) flood magnitudes; and (b) flood occurrence dates.

Fig. 8. Comparisons of observed and modeled joint probabilities of observed combinations between Jinsha [annual maximum (AM) flood magnitude
QJ and occurrence date T J ] and Min River (AM flood magnitude QM and occurrence date T M ): (a) QJ and QM ; and (b) T J and T M .

the joint CDF FT ðtJ ; tM Þ was concave with a much shallower slope. The estimates of the bivariate Kendall’s tau coefficients of
This indicates that the nonexceedance joint probabilities of flood flood magnitudes and occurrence dates for monthly maximum
magnitudes of the two rivers increased greatly with the increase sample series are presented in Table 6. It shows that the Kendall’s
in peak discharges, while the nonexceedance joint probabilities of tau coefficients of occurrence dates for monthly maximum floods
the flood occurrence dates slowly increased with the flood occur- were negative in the months June–August, so the AMH and Frank
rence dates. copulas were used for the three months. For the joint distributions
The observed and computed nonexceedance joint probabilities of monthly maximum flood occurrence dates in the other two
are presented in Figs. 8(a and b), in which the x-axis is sorted in months and monthly maximum flood peaks, the four commonly
ascending order of the computed nonexceedance joint probabilities. used Archimedean copulas were used.
Fig. 8 shows that the GH copulas fitted the observed joint distri- Besides the Archimedean copulas, the Gaussian and Student t
bution of flood magnitudes and occurrence dates. The correlation copulas were also used to model the joint distributions of monthly
coefficients of AM flood magnitudes and occurrence dates between maximum flood. The RMSE values of these copulas for monthly
observed and computed joint probabilities are 0.994 and 0.988,
respectively.
Goodness-of-fit tests were also performed to select the best-fit
copula for the bivariate CDFs of the AM flood magnitudes of the Table 6. Values of Kendall’s Tau of monthly maximum flood magnitudes
two rivers with marginal distributions ignoring historical floods. and occurrence dates for Jinsha and Min Rivers
The result shows that the Clayton copula gave the best fit. A lower Monthly maximum
exceedance flood probability resulted in a higher nonexceedance flood June July August September October
joint probability of floods. The nonexceedance joint probability
computed by the Clayton copula has a lower value at a lower flood Flood peak 0.146 0.112 0.105 0.107 0.273
Occurrence date −0.0197 −0.00164 −0.0601 0.0415 0.233
exceedance probability.

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 Table 7. RMSE values of copulas for monthly maximum flood magnitude and occurrence date
Flood peak Occurrence date
Copula June July August September October June July August September October
AMH 0.042 0.049 0.037 0.068 0.057 0.057 0.054 0.048 0.054 0.053
GH 0.034 0.041 0.035 0.051 0.046 — — — 0.045 0.061
Frank 0.035 0.046 0.041 0.058 0.051 0.052 0.051 0.046 0.048 0.058
Clayton 0.04 0.052 0.038 0.062 0.050 — — — 0.053 0.046
Gaussian 0.038 0.053 0.040 0.054 0.060 0.064 0.057 0.047 0.051 0.051
Student t 0.032 0.045 0.042 0.067 0.053 0.055 0.056 0.052 0.049 0.057
Note: AMH = Ali-Mikhail-Haq; and GH = Gumbel–Hougaard.

maximum flood magnitudes and occurrence dates are shown in southeast monsoon in the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, July and August
Table 7. Based on the RMSE values, it is found that for the joint are the overlapping period of heavy rainfall events in the two river
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distribution of monthly maximum flood magnitudes, the Student t
copula was most appropriate for June, and the GH copula was most
appropriate for the months July–October. For the joint distribution
of monthly maximum flood occurrence dates, the Frank copula was
the best fitted copula for the June–August period, and the GH and
Clayton copulas were the best fitted copulas for September and
October, respectively.
Estimation of Flood Coincidence Risk
Coincidence Risk of Flood Occurrence Dates
With Eq. (11), the coincidence probability of the occurrence date
of AM floods occurring on each day in the period from June 1 to
October 31 can be calculated, and the results are shown in Fig. 9.
Higher coincidence probabilities of AM flood occurrence dates
are seen during the period from mid-July to early September than
other periods. Three coincidence peaks occur on July 28, August
14, and August 31, with the associated probabilities of 5.27 × 10−4 ,
4.09 × 10−4 , and 1.64 × 10−4 , respectively. The results suggest that
the flood control water levels of Xiluodu and Xiangjiaba Reservoirs
during this period should not be raised too high above their flood
limit levels of 560 and 360 m, respectively. Instead, the Xiluodu–
Xiangjiaba cascade reservoirs should maintain a flood control stor-
age to store the flood in the Jinsha River and reduce the flood
coincidence risk of the two rivers from mid-July to early September.
Major storm events in the Jinsha River Drainage Basin and the Min
River Drainage Basin occur during the months of June to August
(Shen and Yang 2007) and July to August, respectively, which are
influenced by the southwest monsoon in the Indian Ocean and the
basins. As shown in Fig. 9, two AM flood occurrence dates with
high estimated peak coincidence probabilities are in July.
The coincidence probability of the AM flood occurrence dates
of the two rivers in the period from June 1 to October 31 can be
obtained by adding together the coincidence probabilities P of AM
flood occurrence dates on each day, expressed as PT ¼ pit , and
the result was 0.0129. Then the expected coincidence number can
be obtained by multiplying PT by the total number of years from
1950 to 2010, yielding 0.79. Based on the measured data from 1950
to 2010, there was only one coincidence occurrence date of AM
flood (September 1, 1966). Therefore, the expected value that was
computed based on the modeled joint probabilities [Eq. (11)] was
in accordance with observations.
The estimated daily coincidence probabilities of the monthly
maximum flood occurrence dates of the two rivers in the months
June–October are shown in Fig. 10. It can be seen that the daily
coincidence probability of the monthly maximum flood occurrence
date is greater than that of the AM flood. For monthly maximum
floods, there is only one coincidence peak in each month, which oc-
curs on June 25, July 18, August 15, September 11, and October 7
with associated probabilities of 2.26 × 10−2 , 6.55 × 10−3 , 4.64 ×
10−3 , 9.93 × 10−3 , and 2.36 × 10−2 , respectively. This indicates
that for monthly maximum floods, June and October have great
coincidence probabilities, while August has the smallest coinci-
dence probability.

Fig. 9. Daily coincidence risk of occurrence date of annual maximum Fig. 10. Daily coincidence risk of occurrence date of monthly max-
floods of Jinsha River and Min River during summer. imum floods of Jinsha River and Min River.

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 Table 8. Coincidence probabilities and coincidence numbers of monthly peaks of the Jinsha and Min Rivers exceeding 0.1%, 1%, and
maximum flood occurrence dates of Jinsha and Min Rivers, June–October 2% floods within a time interval of
4 days were 9.0 × 10−6 ,
Coincidence number 1.0 × 10−4 , and 2.2 × 10−4 , respectively, and the coincidence risks
Estimated coincidence
of flood peaks of the Jinsha, Min, and Jialing Rivers exceeding
Month probability Estimated Observed
1% and 2% floods occurring on the same day were 3.63 × 10−6
June 0.178 5.34 6 and 7.27 × 10−6 , respectively. Therefore, the estimated coincidence
July 0.100 3.1 3 risks of flood peak values of the two rivers occurring on a day as
August 0.070 2.17 2 shown in Table 9 were greater than the coincidence risks of flood
September 0.138 4.14 5
peaks of the three rivers and less than the coincidence risks of
October 0.272 8.43 9
flood peaks of the two rivers within a time interval of
4 days.
Moreover, though the coincidence probabilities are relatively small,
the associated flood damages downstream can be severe once the
In the same way, the coincidence probability and corresponding coincidence floods occur. This information is important to decision
coincidence number of occurrence dates for monthly maximum makers on flood risk management, for example, reducing coinci-
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floods in the months of June through October were obtained, and
the results are presented in Table 8. It shows that the estimated
coincidence numbers in the months were in accordance with obser-
vations. Compared with the AM flood, the coincidence probabilities
of occurrence dates for monthly maximum floods in June to October
are higher. The coincidence probability of occurrence dates for
monthly maximum floods in October reach a maximum, a corre-
sponding coincidence number of 8.43. The coincidence probability
of monthly maximum flood occurrence dates in August is at its
minimal value, a corresponding coincidence number of 2.17.
Coincidence Risk of Flood Magnitudes
Table 9 shows the coincidence probabilities of flood magnitudes
for different design floods on the Jinsha and Min Rivers. It can be
seen that the coincidence probabilities of flood magnitudes for
0.1%, 0.2%, 1%, 2%, and 10% design floods of the two rivers
were 1.79 × 10−6 , 3.60 × 10−6 , 1.88 × 10−5 , 4.33 × 10−5 , and
2.82 × 10−4 , respectively. Floods with higher frequencies resulted
in higher coincidence probabilities. The estimated coincidence
probabilities shown in Table 9 are consistent with the results pre-
sented by Chen et al. (2011, 2012): the coincidence risks of flood
dence risk through flood control operation of Xiluodu–Xiangjiaba
cascade reservoirs.
For comparison, the coincidence probabilities of flood magni-
tudes without consideration of historical floods are also presented
in Table 9. It shows that the coincidence probabilities of flood
magnitudes were underestimated when the historical floods were
ignored.
Presented in Table 10 are the coincidence probabilities of
monthly flood peaks of the two rivers in the months June–October.
Compared with AM flood peaks, the coincidence probabilities of
0.1%, 0.2%, 1%, 2%, and 10% of the monthly maximum flood
peaks increase with time during the five months and reach the maxi-
mum in October.
Summary and Conclusions
Flood coincidence risk represents a key issue in reservoir oper-
ation and management. In this study, the coincidence risk of floods
on the Jinsha and Min Rivers was estimated with multivariate cop-
ulas. Besides the 61-year systematic streamflow records, archived

Table 9. Coincidence probabilities of annual maximum flood peaks of Jinsha and Min Rivers
Min River
Jinsha River
(%) Data 0.1% 0.2% 1% 2% 10%
0.1 SH 1.79 × 10−6 2.46 × 10−6 4.15 ×10−6 5.31 × 10−6 6.81 × 10−6
S 1.65 × 10−8 3.30 × 10−8 1.65 × 10−7 3.29 × 10−7 1.63 × 10−6
0.2 SH 2.46 × 10−6 3.60 × 10−6 6.92 × 10−6 9.24 × 10−6 1.26 × 10−5
S 3.30 × 10−8 6.60 × 10−8 3.29 × 10−7 6.58 × 10−7 3.25 × 10−6
1 SH 4.15 × 10−6 6.92 × 10−6 1.88 × 10−5 2.89 × 10−5 4.97 × 10−5
S 1.65 × 10−7 3.29 × 10−7 1.65 × 10−6 3.28 × 10−6 1.62 × 10−5
2 SH 5.91 × 10−6 1.07 × 10−5 3.85 × 10−5 4.33 × 10−5 1.73 × 10−4
S 3.29 × 10−7 6.58 × 10−7 3.28 × 10−6 6.57 × 10−6 3.25 × 10−5
10 SH 6.81 × 10−6 1.26 × 10−5 4.97 × 10−5 9.27 × 10−5 2.82 × 10−4
S 1.63 × 10−6 3.25 × 10−6 1.62 × 10−5 3.25 × 10−5 1.61 × 10−4
Note: SH = systematic record and historical floods; S = systematic records; and 0.1%, 0.2%, 1%, 2%, and 10% denote the frequencies of design floods.

Table 10. Coincidence probabilities of monthly maximum flood peaks of Jinsha and Min Rivers
Flood frequency
Month 0.1% 0.2% 1% 2% 10%
June 3.94 × 10−7 1.68 × 10−6 4.01 × 10−5 1.54 × 10−4 3.48 × 10−3
July 2.12 × 10−7 8.48 × 10−7 2.10 × 10−5 8.31 × 10−5 1.91 × 10−3
August 1.48 × 10−7 5.91 × 10−7 1.46 × 10−5 5.79 × 10−5 1.33 × 10−3
September 2.93 × 10−7 1.17 × 10−6 2.90 × 10−5 1.16 × 10−4 2.64 × 10−3
October 6.45 × 10−7 2.58 × 10−6 6.37 × 10−5 2.51 × 10−4 5.68 × 10−3

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 historical flood information was also included to establish the mar-
ginal distribution of flood magnitude. Copula functions were used
to establish the joint distributions of flood magnitudes and occur-
rence dates of the two rivers. The coincidence probabilities of flood
magnitudes and peak occurrence dates were calculated, and the
results were compared with monthly maximum floods. The major
findings of this study are as follows:
1. Compared with Gamma, GEV, lognormal, and LP-III distribu-
tions, the P-III and the mixed von Mises distributions performed
better in simulating the observed flood magnitudes and occur-
rence dates. The exceedance probability of floods greater than
20,000 m3 =s increased after incorporating historical floods. The
AM flood occurrence dates of the Jinsha and Min Rivers were
not synchronous. Based on the probability density of occurrence
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probability of AM flood occurrence dates of the two rivers in
the period from June 1 to October 31 was 0.0129. The daily
coincidence probability of the monthly maximum flood occur-
rence date increased with only one peak in each month. The
coincidence probabilities of occurrence dates for monthly max-
imum floods in the June–October period were 0.178, 0.100,
0.070, 0.138, and 0.272, respectively.
4. The coincidence probabilities of flood magnitudes for 0.1%,
0.2%, 1%, 2%, and 10% AM floods of the Jinsha and Min
Rivers were 1.79 × 10−6 , 3.60 × 10−6 , 1.88 × 10−5 , 4.33 × 10−5 ,
and 2.82 × 10−4 , respectively. With the marginal distribution
after ignoring historical floods, the coincidence probability of
flood magnitudes decreased. The coincidence probabilities of
monthly maximum flood magnitudes increased with time and

date in ascending order, flood peaks of the Jinsha River occurred
mainly in early September, mid-August, and late July, while
flood peaks of the Min River occurred mainly in late July, mid-
August, and early July.
2. The correlations of flood magnitudes and occurrence dates be-
tween the two stations were positive. On performing goodness-
of-fit tests for the GH, Clayton, AMH, Frank, Gaussian, and
Student t copulas, it was found that the GH copula was the best
fitted copula for the two dependence structures and was selected
to establish the joint distributions of flood magnitudes and oc-
currence dates of the two rivers, respectively. If the marginal
distribution of flood magnitude was established without con-
sidering historical floods, the Clayton copula would be most
appropriate for modeling the joint distributions of the flood
magnitudes of the two rivers.
3. Higher coincidence probabilities of AM flood occurrence dates
of the two rivers occurred in the period from mid-June to early
September than other periods. Three coincidence peaks oc-
curred on July 28, August 14, and August 31. The coincidence
reached a maximum in October.
The results of this study showed the spatiotemporal character-
istics of floods of the Jinsha and Min Rivers, providing coincidence
probabilities for different design floods of the rivers during the
period from June 1 to October 31, which can be utilized to guide
cascade reservoir flood control operations on the Jinsha River.
It is suggested that the flood control water levels of Xiluodu
and Xiangjiaba Reservoirs should not be raised too high above
their flood limit levels during the period from mid-July to early
September in order to maintain certain flood control storage and
reduce coincidence flood risk.
The accuracy of a joint probability model can greatly affect the
results of this coincidence flood risk analysis with copula-based
joint distributions. To improve model accuracy, the use of nonpara-
metric copulas or two-parameter copulas should be considered in
future studies. In addition, coincidence risk analysis is based on the
assumption that flood occurrence date and flood magnitude are in-
dependent of each other, which will need to be verified in future
research.

Appendix I. AM Flood Peaks and Occurrence Dates of Pingshan and Gaochang Stations in 1950–2010

Occurrence date Occurrence date

Peak discharge (m3 =s) (month=day) Peak discharge (m3 =s) (month=day)
Year Pingshan Gaochang Pingshan Gaochang Year Pingshan Gaochang Pingshan Gaochang
1950 14,000 14,300 9/14 8/15 1981 18,500 23,100 6/29 7/14
1951 17,300 20,500 7/23 7/10 1982 14,400 19,800 7/26 9/6
1952 15,900 13,100 8/20 8/18 1983 12,100 14,100 9/3 8/18
1953 16,200 11,900 7/26 7/28 1984 13,800 14,400 7/19 7/31
1954 23,600 15,000 8/27 7/17 1985 18,400 18,200 7/11 8/26
1955 18,700 24,100 8/14 7/15 1986 17,900 15,600 9/6 8/19
1956 13,300 16,100 9/13 7/24 1987 18,100 16,000 6/27 6/27
1957 22,300 15,400 8/8 7/19 1988 14,600 12,900 9/3 7/27
1958 16,700 15,900 9/2 8/15 1989 13,600 25,900 10/19 7/27
1959 14,600 25,500 8/16 8/13 1990 14,800 20,600 7/29 7/18
1960 13,900 19,400 8/8 8/1 1991 22,000 22,300 8/17 8/10
1961 14,000 31,400 8/21 6/29 1992 10,500 12,200 7/14 8/14
1962 21,300 15,200 8/12 7/28 1993 21,900 18,600 9/1 7/30
1963 15,300 11,700 8/28 7/25 1994 11,600 10,100 6/23 9/2
1964 16,800 16,200 10/9 9/11 1995 13,300 22,100 7/23 8/12
1965 23,000 11,700 8/12 7/22 1996 19,000 17,700 7/25 7/29
1966 28,600 24,100 9/1 9/1 1997 18,000 12,600 7/20 7/5
1967 9,760 12,400 8/10 8/9 1998 23,500 16,900 8/13 7/7
1968 19,800 17,100 8/14 8/6 1999 21,200 12,900 9/5 8/10
1969 14,700 10,200 9/5 8/18 2000 19,500 9,630 9/3 8/9
1970 18,300 12,900 7/21 7/29 2001 21,100 17,000 9/6 8/20
1971 13,400 12,600 8/19 8/17 2002 22,100 14,400 8/17 8/1
1972 17,200 16,500 8/3 7/22 2003 16,600 18,600 9/13 8/31
1973 17,300 18,200 9/20 7/1 2004 15,800 9,950 9/8 8/4
1974 25,500 16,600 9/3 7/28 2005 20,800 13,700 8/13 7/4

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 Appendix I. (Continued.)
Occurrence date Occurrence date
Peak discharge (m3 =s) (month=day) Peak discharge (m3 =s) (month=day)
Year Pingshan Gaochang Pingshan Gaochang Year Pingshan Gaochang Pingshan Gaochang
1975 11,100 20,600 8/2 8/11 2006 10,300 7,010 7/10 7/8
1976 14,100 13,800 7/9 8/22 2007 17,300 13,500 9/16 9/1
1977 12,400 15,000 8/30 7/8 2008 15,500 10,300 9/2 9/27
1978 13,300 13,800 8/9 8/1 2009 17,200 14,500 8/16 8/1
1979 14,800 16,400 9/3 7/28 2010 14,400 15,900 8/29 7/18
1980 18,100 15,400 8/21 6/30 — — — — —

Appendix II. Basic Properties of Applied Copulas

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Copula Cθ ðu; vÞ θ∈
Ali–Mikhail–Haq uv=½1 − θð1 − uÞð1 − vÞ ½−1; 1Þ
Gumbel–Hougaard expf−½ð− ln uÞθ þ ð− ln vÞθ 1=θ g ½1; ∞Þ

1 ðe−θu − 1Þðe−θv − 1Þ
Frank − ln 1 þ ð−∞; þ∞Þ \ f0g
θ ðe−θ − 1Þ
Clayton −θ
ðu þ v − 1Þ −θ −1=θ ð0; ∞Þ
 2 
−1 −1 1 s − 2θst þ t2
Gaussian ∫ Φ−∞ðuÞ ∫ Φ−∞ðvÞ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi exp − dsdt ½−1; 1
2π ð1 − θ2 Þ 2ð1 − θ2 Þ
  vþ2
t−1 −1
v ðuÞ ∫ tv ðvÞ
1 s2 − 2θst þ t2 − 2
Student t ∫ −∞ −∞ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 1 þ 2
dsdt ½−1; 1
2π ð1 − θ2 Þ vð1 − θ Þ

Note: Φ = cumulative distribution function of standard normal distribution; and tv = standard t distribution with v degrees of freedom.

Appendix III. Estimated Parameters of Marginal Distributions for Annual Maximum Flood Peaks and
Occurrence Dates

Estimated parameters
Flood peak Occurrence date
Distribution Probability density function Estimated parameter Pingshan Gaochang Pingshan Gaochang
GEV 1h α i 1 −1 n h α i1 o
α̂ 0.171 0.223 −0.391 −0.214
1 − ðx − δÞ α exp − 1 − ðx − δÞ α
β β β β̂ 4,014.3 3,662.6 25.588 19.428
δ̂ 15,421 13,931 68.594 54.689

Gamma 1 x−δ α̂ 2.304 3.449 129.87 24.709
exp − ðx − δÞα−1 x>0 β̂
ΓðαÞβ α β 4,067.7 3,210 4.027 2.143
δ̂ 9,177 5,996.9 −37.051 −202.02
 
Lognormal 1 ½lnðx − βÞ − δ2 α̂ 0.523 0.442 0.120 0.04
pffiffiffiffiffiffi exp − x>β β̂ −542.85 −103.82
ðx − βÞα 2π 2α2 7,100.8 4,032.4
δ̂ 9.208 9.372 6.428 5.106
LP-III βα α̂ 9.321 5.623 3.180 14.933
ðln x − δÞα−1 exp½−βðln x − δÞ x > eδ
xΓðαÞ β̂ 0.101 0.140 0.089 0.212
δ̂ 8.832 8.8972 5.414 4.946
P-III βα α̂ 2.687 2.441 1.785 1.543
ðx − δÞα−1 exp½−βðx − δÞ x > δ
ΓðαÞ β̂ 0.0006 0.0004 0.0026 0.0047
δ̂ 9,374.95 7,733.94 26.58 31.96
Mixed von Mises Pn pi p̂i — — 0.143 0.63
exp½ki cosðx − ui Þ 0 ≤ x ≤ 2π
i¼1
2πI 0 ðki Þ 0.470 0.12
0.387 0.25
μ̂i — — 3.08 3.02
3.93 2.38
2.23 1.61
k̂i — — 68.33 3.07
9.53 299.85
3.74 7.90
Note: α̂, β̂, and δ̂ = estimated shape, scale, and location parameters of probability density distribution; i = each component of mixed von Mises distribution;
pi = mixing proportion; and ui and ki = mean direction and concentration parameter for component i of mixed von Mises distribution, respectively.

© ASCE 05018030-12 J. Hydrol. Eng.

J. Hydrol. Eng., 2019, 24(2): 05018030

 Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (51679088) and the Project of National Key Research
and Development Program of China (2016YFC0402308 and
2016YFC0402502). The authors are very grateful to the editors and
anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions greatly
improved the quality of this paper.
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