Hydrological Sciences Journal

ISSN: 0262-6667 (Print) 2150-3435 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/thsj20

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

CHRISTIAN ONOF , DUNCAN FAULKNER & HOWARD S. WHEATER
To cite this article: CHRISTIAN ONOF , DUNCAN FAULKNER & HOWARD S. WHEATER (1996)
Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 41:5,
715-733, DOI: 10.1080/02626669609491541
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626669609491541

Published online: 24 Dec 2009.

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Date: 08 August 2016, At: 06:36

TlydrologicalSciences -Journal- des Sciences Hydmlogiqucs,4\(5) October 1996

715

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames

catchment

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CHRISTIAN ONOF, DUNCAN FAULKNER*

& HOWARD S. WHEATER
Department of Civil Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Technology and
Medicine, London SW7 2BU, UK
Abstract This paper examines methodologies for the simulation of
storms for the purpose of design flood generation in the Thames region.
Existing methods are reviewed and two new approaches are proposed.
One combines point profiles of storms extracted from long rainfall
records with depth-duration-frequency statistics. The other uses a
stochastic rainfall model based upon the Poisson point process to generate
data. Rainfall events simulated by these two methods are compared and
the flood statistics obtained by inputting these events into a rainfall-runoff
model are examined for a small catchment in Surrey, England. The
Poisson based model is recommended as the more reliable.
Modlisation de pluies de projet dans le bassin de la Tamise
Rsum Cet article examine les mthodologies de simulation d'averses
en vue de la gnration de crues de projet dans la rgion de la Tamise.
On a pass en revue les mthodes existantes et nous prsentons deux
nouvelles techniques. L'une d'entre elles utilise les allures d'averses
extraites de longues sries temporelles de pluies ponctuelles ainsi que les
rsultats d'tudes statistiques du triplet hauteur-dure-frquence des
vnements pluvieux. L'autre utilise un modle stochastique bas sur un
processus de Poisson pour simuler des donnes. Nous avons compar les
vnements pluvieux simuls par ces deux mthodes et nous avons
analys les crues obtenues en utilisant un modle pluie-dbit pour un petit
bassin versant du Surrey. Le modle poissonnien est recommand car il
apparat comme tant le plus fiable.
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE PROBLEM
A knowledge of the magnitude of floods with a given frequency of occurrence
is essential for many hydrological applications. Since the records of available
discharge data for a specific site of interest are commonly too short to draw
conclusions about low frequency events, in general a data generation model
must be used. There are, in principle, two sets of approaches to this problem:
1.
A statistical analysis of flood peaks can be undertaken, either based upon
extrapolation of single site data, for instance using extreme-value theory

* now at Institute of Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 8BB, UK.

Open for discussion until 1 April 1997

716

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2.

C. Onof et al.

(Gumbel, 1941; Moran, 1957) or upon renewal theory (Bernier, 1967),

or incorporating regional information (NERC, 1975).
A rainfall-runoff model can be used to simulate a continuous catchment
hydrograph response. Where contemporaneous rainfall and new flow
data are available, calibration of a continuous rainfall-runoff simulation
model is possible, and this can be used with long historical time-series
of input precipitation and climatological data (e.g. James, 1965). If input
time-series are not available, they can in principle be modelled, although
it is in practice difficult to preserve seasonal, inter-event and withinevent properties across a spectrum of return periods (Onof & Wheater,
1993).

As a variant on this second approach, an event-based rainfall-runoff

approach may be adopted, i.e. an approach in which only the floods produced
by individual large rainfall events are analysed. This permits considerable
simplification of the continuous rainfall-runoff model approach (although the
latter can be readily extended to distributed modelling). Regional analysis can
be used to specify an appropriate functional relationship for ungauged catchments (Wheater et al., 1993). In this latter case problems arise in the form of
a non-unique relationship between the statistical properties of the input and
output data. In UK practice (NERC, 1975), a unimodal storm profile of prespecified peakedness is produced, consistent with storm depth-durationfrequency (DDF) statistics, in conjunction with average antecedent conditions.
On the basis of simulation studies, a notional rainfall frequency is recommended to produce a given frequency of simulated flood.
One of the reasons for the absence of a simple relationship between
rainfall frequency and runoff frequency is the temporal variability of the storm
event rainfall profile. In addition, that profile may be important in determining
catchment response, particularly for urban catchments and where local storage
is important. Hence in this paper alternative approaches to the specification of
storm temporal characteristics are investigated and their implications for catchment flood response considered. It is, however, recognized that the variability
of antecedent conditions is an additional important factor in design, but this
aspect is not considered further here.
Alternative approaches to the specification of a storm event rainfall
profile have been used. Thus, the Greater London Council (GLC) method
(Butters & Vairavamoorthy, 1977) sought to use profiles which are more
realistic than those of the Flood Studies Report (hereafter FSR; NERC, 1975)
by basing them upon historical profiles. These profiles also have the statistical
property of conforming over all durations to the DDF relationships published
by the UK Meteorological Office. In 33 years of rainfall data from several
gauges, 106 "flood-producing" profiles (at least 25 mm in 24 hours) were
found. These storms were then normalized, plotted cumulatively and divided
by visual inspection into 10 groups. This generated 10 mean profiles, each with
a frequency equal to the number of occurrences of the corresponding storms.
In the GLC method, 250 storms are then generated in the following manner for

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

each storm: each one of the 10 mean profiles is randomly selected according
to its frequency and a random duration is chosen within the time-constraints for
the profile. A rank is chosen between 1 and 1000 which allocates the simulated
storm an annual frequency. The storm depth for that frequency and duration
is then obtained by scaling the simulated storm. These 250 storm profiles are
then assumed to represent 100 years of data.
This procedure has been criticized (Beran, 1987) chiefly for the following reasons:

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(a)

the method used to screen hydrologically significant events is in danger

of overlooking certain annual maxima;
(b) it is not clear why Butters & Vairavamoorthy (1977) considered that 250
storms should represent 100 years of data; and
(c) the assumption of independence between storm severity and shape is
questionable.
The library model presented below attempts to use historical storms while
avoiding those pitfalls.
Another way of tackling the shortcomings of design rainfall would be to
use time-series of rainfall depths (Arnell, 1978; Marsalek, 1978). To generate
such time-series, the complexity of rainfall generating mechanisms suggests a
stochastic approach (Onof & Wheater, 1993). The second model presented here
presents an application of a stochastic point rainfall model to the generation of
extreme events.
The adequacy of these models is examined in this paper in two ways:
on the one hand, by looking at the statistics and profiles of the storms
they generate; and
on the other, by examining the statistics of the floods generated by
inputing the simulated storms to the FRQSIM rainfall-runoff software
package developed by Vairavamoorthy et al. (1990).

RAINFALL DATA
The data examined are a subset of data recorded on daily charts and then
digitized by the GLC and the UK Meteorological Office, using a Precision
Encoder and Pattern Recognition (PEPR) system and are specified in Table 1.
The data are comprehensively analysed in Moore et al. (1993). More recent
digitized data from three raingauges were also available (Table 1), and a record
of 39 years of Heathrow hourly rainfall from 1949 to 1987 has been used to
derive DDF statistics. The gauges used are shown on Fig. 1.
The analysis shows that rainfall depths of return periods up to 50 years
are within 2 mm of those found in the FSR. There is a greater discrepancy for
100 year depths, but this appears to be a consequence of the way in which the
EV-II distribution was fitted to the data. Therefore the extreme-value statistics
obtained from the FSR were used in the following analyses.

111

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C. Onof et al.

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Table 1 Raingauge data available

Station

Period

Quality

Format

PEPR:
Kew Observatory

July 1944-Dec 1974

good

raw digitized

Hayes, Wood End nurseries

Oct 1928-May 1944

Brent reservoir

Jan 1949-Dec 1976

many missing months and raw digitized

days
and hourly
2.5 years missing
hourly

Clapton pond

Jan 1960-Nov 1976

several missing months

hourly

Hampstead

1944-1948, to fill gap

between Hayes and Brent

good

hourly

Recent:
Kew sewerage treatment works

Jan 1978-Dec 1981

good

tip times

Cheam pumping station

Jan 1984-May 1990

good

tip times

Brent reservoir

Jan 1989-Mar 1994

good

15-min totals

PEPR = Precision Encodet and Pattern Recognition.

WATTORD

T Brent_
s

SLOUGH
Y

THa

LON^M|^=^

y^

Heathrow .

STORES

Hampstead)
X
x, .
V
T Clapton i,

KeV V=J

Cheam )

WOKING)

"^~s
10 km

Fig. 1 Location of the raingauges.

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

THE LIBRARY MODEL

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Overview
The library model selects from historical data those profiles which are
realizations of storms with a depth and duration of a given return period. The
aims in developing the method, addressing some of the problems with the
current FRQSIM procedures, were:
to use observed storm profiles, not averaged or idealized ones;
to reproduce the frequency of occurrence of different profile shapes;
to use FSR statistics for depth-duration-frequency; and
to avoid scaling of profile ordinates where possible, because profile
shape was found to depend on total depth.
The name of the method arose from the large "library" of storm profiles which
was compiled from sub-hourly rainfall data from seven gauges in London, UK.
The records run from 1928 to 1994, with a few breaks, providing 59 years of
data in total.
The library
This is a collection of profiles at half-hourly discretization which correspond
to the most intense parts, over several durations, of every major storm in the
record. Profiles may include dry periods, as long as their total amount does not
exceed one sixth of the duration.
The library is divided into 79 duration classes (every half-hour from 1
to 40 hours), each of which is subdivided into six classes based on the total
rainfall over the duration. There are 3922 profiles in total.
Description
The storm simulation method has the following steps:
(1) Decide on a storm return period, T;
(2) Select a duration randomly from a uniform distribution over a range of
durations suitable for the catchment;
(3) Find the FSR rainfall corresponding to the return period and duration;
(4) Select a profile in a uniformly random fashion from the library class
corresponding to the depth and duration (or from the nearest class);
(5) Scale the profile slightly if necessary, so that depth matches the FSR
figures exactly;
(6) Repeat steps 2 to 5 several times to generate several realisations of a
T-year storm; and
(7) Apply the storms to a FRQSIM catchment model, using appropriate
catchment parameters for estimating the T-year flood.

719

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C. Onofet al.

Design flood estimation

There is no guarantee that a storm of a given return period will give rise to a
flood with the same return period. Careful choices must be made when using
this method to estimate design floods, such as ensuring that the range of storm
durations matches the critical durations of the catchment, and using suitable
catchment wetness values. Most authors (Pilgrim & Cordery, 1975) recommend
the use of median values for losses or soil moisture deficits.

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THE POISSON MODEL

The Bartlett-Lewis model: equations and calibration
Description The model was first used by Rodriguez-Iturbe et al. (1987).
Storms are assumed to arrive according to a Poisson distribution. With each
storm is associated a process of cell arrivals which are also Poisson distributed,
with the first cell fixed at the beginning of the storm. Cells can arrive only
during a random period, the storm activity duration. To each cell is assigned
a rectangular pulse which has exponentially distributed depth and duration.
The model has five parameters:
X, the rate of arrival of storms;
|3, the rate of arrival of cells within a storm;
y, the parameter of the exponential distribution of storm activity durations;
rj, the parameter of the exponential distribution of pulse duration; and
e = l//xx, the parameter of the exponential distribution of cell intensity.
Equations The basic equations for the depth Y)h) (the z'fh rainfall depth
of the time-series at time-scale h) in the model are derived in Appendix 1.
They yield the following relationships:
mean:

E[Y[hn = ^

variance:
var[y;(/!>] =

(i)

[hr, -1 + e ^ ]

(2)

covariance of lag k (k > 1):

cov[Yfh\Yi+k^]

= Jll[ehr>+e-hl>-2]e^h

(3)

i? 3

which differ from the expressions in Rodriguez-Iturbe et al. (1987) due to

typing errors in their equation (2.15).

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

721

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The way the model is used provides a way of generating storms having
the required duration. By simulating a large number of such storms, the
extrema of a given return period can be identified.
The parameters for the model are fitted by using moments of the rainfall
depth within storms for the extreme storms so as to reproduce features of the
storm profile and by using moments of the total storm depth so as to reproduce
the statistics of the FSR.
For such a calibration to be possible, analytical expressions must be
derived for the moments of the total storm depth as a function of the
parameters and the total storm duration. If the instantaneous cell depth is X
with a probability distribution function (pdf):
f(x) = exp[-x//u x ]
and the cell duration is Y with pdf:
g(y) = jexpt-^y]
the total storm depth is therefore:
Z = lXpYp

(4)

where Xp and Yp are the depth and duration of the pth cell in a storm of JV cells
and are distributed as Zand F respectively. The properties
of the distribution of Z are best obtained using the characteristic function. The
details of the calculation are given in Appendix 2.
The moments used in the calibration are the mean and the variance of the
storm depth:
E[D] = Ll (fiL + 1)
V
r

var[>] =

-I

Mx

(5)

(4/3L + 3)

(6)

where L is the duratio n of the storm

Using the Flood Studies Report To be able to use this last set of
equations, the information given by the FSR has to be utilized. The FSR gives
DDF curves. The depth x of return period T for an EV-II distribution is given
by:
x(T)

exp{z(T)/a}-b

w h e r e z(T)

__ _ l n ( _ l n ( 1 _ h

Therefore, by using n different return periods Th for which the FSR gives the
depth as xt, parameters a, a and b can be estimated by minimizing the sum of

722

C. Onof et al.

the squares of the deviations between x(7}) and xh i.e. Y [xl; -x(7})]2. In this
way, the best possible EV-II fit to the FSR statistics is found. Setting the partial
derivatives to 0 yields equations which can be solved by using the Powell
hybrid method. The moments of the EV-II distribution can then be obtained,
for example as in equation 1.2.4.12 in NERC (1975).

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Parameter values and results

A first calibration method used equations (2), (3) and (5) to determine the three
parameters (3, y\ and \xx. The first two equations were applied to rainfall data
from extreme rainfall events, treating these as a separate population of which
the annual maximum storms form a sample. Using the statistics of the annual
maximum storms at Kew (Table 2) and FSR statistics for central and south
London (Table 3), the parameters in Table 4 were obtained.

Table 2 Kew half-hourly statistics

Duration (h)

12

18

24

[)]
varUJ
covK, Yi+1]

2.90
17.4
2.21

2.14
12.8
2.62

1.58
9.10
2.37

1.26
7.23
2.12

0.93
5.11
1.62

0.74
3.73
1.24

Table 3 Central and South London EV-II statistics

Duration (h)
a
a.10'2
b (mm)
E[X] (mm)
var[X] (mm2)

4
4.90
4.28
0.158
23.6
78

6
4.89
4.04
0.148
25.3
86

9
5.01
3.6
0.155
28.0
103

12
5.03
3.46
0.138
29.5
116

18
5.11
3.23
0.095
32.9
120

24
5.24
2.92
0.137
34.7
139

FSR r ratio: 45%; M5-2 day: 45mm.

Table 4 Parameters for the first calibration method

Duration (h)

(h"11)

0
n Or )

lix (mm h"1)

4
2.66
9.76
19.8

6
1.61
6.40
15.2

9
1.12
5.11
12.9

12

18

0.840
4.53
12.1

0.642
4.16
10.9

24
0.546
3.96
9.74

Parameters were found for certain durations L and for the other
durations, regression relationships were estimated for each parameter:

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

723

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jS = 8.075ZTU-S/4
ij = 16.67 -2.359L + 0.144L 2 - 2.8 x 10"3L3
0 381
Mx = 31.41L- -

(7)

with values of the percentage of explained variance, R2 equal to 0.80, 0.88 and
0.89 respectively. All three parameters showed an overall decrease as L
increased. Equations (7) indicate that longer storms are simulated by longer and
less intense cells which arrive less frequently. With these parameters, storms
of all durations L can be simulated and are considered to be the annual
maxima. The parameters X and 7 were not required.
Table 5 shows the storm depths for different return periods and for a
number of simulated storms (sample size) of 1000 or 2000. In this Table, the
T-year ranking was found by ranking the total depths of the annual maximum
storms and using Weibull plotting positions.

Table 5 Storm statistics for the first calibration method

Return period (years)

Depth (mm; 6-h storm) with sample

FSR depth (mm; 6-h storm)

1000 storms

2000 storms

20
100

57
93

57
89

44
61

Instead of the combination used above, equations (3), (5) and (6) were
next used, so that the variance of the rainfall depths within storms from
equation (2) was replaced by the variance of the total storm depths
(equation (6)). With this calibration method therefore:
(a)
DDF curves given in the FSR were used so that the model reproduced
the mean and variance of the total storm depth; and
(b) equation (3) was used so that the correlation structure of the rainfall
process within the storm was reproduced. The parameters obtained are
given in Table 6.
The regression relationships for all durations L were:
13 = 22.5ZT0-875
7] = 1741-1.43
\xx = 128Z.-1.33

(9)

Table 6 Parameters for the second calibration method

Duration (h)

12

18

_ _

__

29.3
24.4

12.6
10.8

7.20
6.68

3.90
3.86

2.50
2.30

2.50
2.52

r, (h' )
^(mmh-1)

24

724

C. Onof et al.

Table 7 shows the storm depths for different return periods for 6-hour
and 12-hour storms and a sample size of 1000 storms.
Table 7 Storm statistics for the second calibration method
Return period
(years)

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5
20
50
100

Depth (mm)

FST depth (mm)

6-h storms

12-h storms

6-h storms

12-h storms

34
47
54
62

40
54
64
73

31
44
52
61

36
49
59
69

EVALUATION OF THE RESULTS

Rainfall characteristics
Reproduction of the DDF statistics The library model was matched
exactly to the Depth-Duration-Frequency statistics of the FSR, so the question
to ask is how well does the Poisson model manage to match these statistics.
The T-year rainfall was found by ranking the total depths of 1000 simulated
annual maximum storms of a given duration, and using Weibull plotting positions. The results for 6-hour storms simulated by the Poisson model when it
was fitted using the first method are compared with FSR results in Table 5 and
show that the Poisson model overestimated infrequent rainfalls by up to 50%.
The problem encountered was that the variance of the total storm depths, which
was not used to fit the model, was too large: i.e. 348 mm2 compared with
86 mm2 for the FSR extreme-value distribution.
There was a clear improvement when the second fitting method was
used, a consequence of the incorporation of the storm variance in the
calibration method. As can be seen from Table 7, no error greater than 3 mm
for 6-hour storm for all return periods occurred between the model simulated
storm depths and the FSR statistics. This increased to up to 5 mm for 12-hour
storms. Infrequent events were much better estimated, as may also be seen in
Figs 2(a) and 2(b).
Profile shapes The Poisson model was able to simulate profiles with a
range of realistic shapes, reproducing typical features of historical point profiles
such as the ones shown in Fig. 3(a). Figure 3(b) shows four 6-hour profiles
selected from a simulation of 2000 annual maximum storms. The range of
shapes evident in observed profiles is seen to be well represented by the model,
which is important when simulated storms are used to estimate floods in small,
responsive urban catchments. It must, however, be noted that although most of
the data were very noisy, there were a few storms which presented fairly

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

80-1

(a)

725

(b)

60-

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30-

reduced variate y

Fig. 2 Frequency of (a) simulated 6-hour rainfall and (b) simulated 12-hour
rainfall.

regular profiles, as in Fig. 3(a) (early peak), which the stochastic model seldom
reproduced.
Estimation of design floods
The Nutfield Brook catchment The Nutfield Brook is a small tributary
of a river (Redhill Brook) whichflowsnorth, joining the Thames at the western
edge of London. The catchment has an area of 7.6 km2. It is predominantly
rural, although there is some impermeable area in a village and on a motorway
which crosses the catchment. Further details are given in a report on an
investigation (NRA, 1993) into flooding problems in the catchment. The study
involved constructing a FRQSIM model, calibrating it with rather limited data
and estimating design flows for several points in the catchment. For the current
study, design flows were estimated at the Mid Street Bridge in the village of
South Nutfield. A constant proportional loss model was used, with a catchment
wetness index of 120 mm.
Application of the Poisson model Sets of 1000 simulated annual maximum storms were applied to the catchment model, and the resulting sets of
flow peaks were ranked to enable the selection of flows with various return
periods, neglecting for the time being the effect of antecedent conditions. The
influence of storm duration on design flow was expected to be relatively small:
it was found that storms lasting between 10 and 15 hours gave slightly higher
design flows than 5 to 10 hour storms. Figure 4 is a plot of one realization of
the annual maximum floods produced by storms which were generated by the
Poisson model when fitted using method 2. It is clear from that Figure that
fitting a Gumbel distribution to this series, as is usually done with FRQSIM,
would not have adequately represented the results.

726

C. Onof et al.

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intense central peak

llllllll.-.l
(b)

earlypeak

intense central peak

LAL
1

^m

double peak

-HLIl-l-l lllllllllll
Fig. 3 (a) Historic 6-hour profiles from the library and (b) simulated 6-hour
profiles.

Application of the library model Four sets of 250 storm profiles were
used to run the model, each set consisting of different storm profile shapes and
durations (between 4 and 36 hours), corresponding to storms with return
periods 5, 20, 50 and 100 years. Each set of storms produced a distribution of
flow peaks. Examples are displayed in Figs 5(a) and 5(b). From these Figures,
it is clear that a storm of a given return period can give rise to a wide range
of floods depending only on the storm event rainfall profile. A way round this
indeterminate relationship is to examine the peak intensities of storms, for

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

727

I 6-

0-

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reduced variate y

Fig. 4 Frequency plot of 1000 annual maximum floods.

4
5
6
peak How /cumecs

Fig. 5 Distribution of floods (a) from 250 5-year storms and (b) from 250
100-year storms.

728

C, Onof et al.

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example the 100-year storms which gave rise to the largest floods in the distribution had peak intensities close to the FSR 100-year rainfall over half an hour
for the catchment. This indicates that it would make sense to choose the 100year flood from the top end of the distribution and it is the maximum which is
chosen for comparison below.
Comparison of the results Design floods estimated using the two rainfall models are compared in Table 8 with those from the original FRQSIM
method (NRA, 1993). The two models presented in this paper gave remarkably
similar estimates, differing by a maximum of 9%, for the 20-year flood. The
original method overestimated floods up to 50 years, but gave a lower 100-year
flood; this could be due to a split regression technique used to fit Gumbel
distributions to flows simulated by FRQSIM, i.e. several Gumbel lines were
fitted piecewise to the data points.

Table 8 Design flood estimates

Return period (years) (m3 s"1)
_
20
50
100

Original method (m3 s"1) Library model (m3 s"1)

_
_
4.4
3.2
4.9
4.4
5.2
5.6

Poisson model (m3 s"1)

_
3.5
4.4
5.4

CONCLUSION
This paper has presented two models for the temporal distribution of storm
event rainfall, the first a library model which improves upon existing methods
for the generation of design rainfall for flood simulation, and the second a
stochastic model based upon a Poisson process for rainfall cell structure, which
generates random storms which are transformed into floods when input into
FRQSIM.
It has been demonstrated that, at least for the catchment considered, peak
discharge is dependent on storm interior distribution.
These results of applying methods which include variability of storm
interior distribution are encouraging and research is currently being undertaken
to extend them to other catchment areas.
The two rainfall models were seen to produce very similar flood estimates. The Poisson model was found to generate design rainfalls which both
satisfied the FSR DDF statistics and presented a diversity of profiles similar to
those found in the library of historical storms. The Poisson model, however,
presents several advantages:
it does not require that so much data be available, since one statistic
from the actual storm profiles, namely the lag-one autocorrelation of

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

hourly depths, is sufficient;
it does not encounter the problems which the library model has in deciding which flood estimate corresponds to the required return period; and
it is more likely to be transportable in that, subject to a regional analysis
of the model parameters, it may be used to generate floods in other
catchments.

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Acknowledgements Duncan Faulkner would like to acknowledge the financial

support of Dr F. Faulkner. The assistance of UK National Rivers Authority
(Thames Region) is gratefully acknowledged, as well as that of the UK
Meterological Office which provided the hourly rainfall records.
REFERENCES
Arnell, V. (1978) Analysis of rainfall data for use in the design of storm sewer systems. In: Urban Storm
Drainage, (Proc. Int. Conf., Southampton, UK), 72-86. Pentech Press, UK.
Beran, M. (1987) Review of Ex-GLC rainfall-runoff method. Institute of Hydrology, Wallingford, UK.
Bernier, J. (1967) Sur la thorie du renouvellement et son application en hydrologie. Electricit de France,
HYD67, 10.
Butters, K. & Vairavamoorthy, A. (1977) Hydrological studies on some river catchments in Greater
London. Proc. Instn Civil Engrs(2), 63; 331-361.
Gumbel, E. J. (1941) The return period of flood flows. Annals Math. Stat. XII, 163-190
James (1965) Using a digital computer to estimate effects of urban development on flood peaks. Wat.
Resour. Res. 1, 223-234.
Marsalek, J. (1978) Synthesized and historical storms for urban drainage design. In: Urban Storm Drainage,
(Proc. Int. Conf., Southampton, UK), 87-99. Pentech Press, UK.
Moore, R. J., Hotchkiss, D. S. & Black, K. B. (1993) Rainfall patterns over London. Report to NRA
Thames Region. Institute of Hydrology, Wallingford, UK.
Moran, P. A. P. (1957) The statistical treatment of flood flows. Trans. AGU 38, 519-523.
National Rivers Authority (1993) Hydrological Report of the Nuffield Brook to the confluence with the
Redhill Brook. Flood Hydrology, NRA (Thames Region), UK.
Natural Environment Research Council (1975) Flood Studies Report, vol. 5. NERC, London, UK.
Onof, C. & Wheater, H. S. (1993) Modelling of British rainfall using a random parameter Bartlett-Lewis
rectangular pulse model. J. Hydrol. 149, 67-95.
Pilgrim, D. H. & Cordery, I. (1975) Rainfall temporal patents for design floods. / . Hydraul. Div. ASCE
101, 81-95.
Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., Gupta, V. K. & Waymire, E. (1984) Scale considerations in the modelling of temporal
rainfall. Wat. Resour. Res. 20, 1611-1619.
Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., Cox, D. R. & Isham, V. (1987) Some models for rainfall based on stochastic point
processes. Proc. R. Soc. London A410, 269-288.
Vairavamoorthy, A., Rylands, W. D. & Mills, D. N. (1990) FRQSIM - a flood hydrology model. In: Int.
Conf. on River Flood Hydraulics, Wallingford, UK, Sept. 1990), ed. W. R. White, 41-51. Wiley,
Chichester, UK.
Wheater, H. S., Jakeman, A. J. & Beven, K. J. (1993) Progress and directions in rainfall-runoff modelling.
In: Modelling Change in Environmental Systems, ed. Jakeman, Beck & McAleer
101-132. Wiley, Chichester, UK.
Received 21 August 1995; accepted 12 January 1996

729

730

C.Onofetal.

APPENDIX 1
Analytical expression of the moments of aggregated precipitation depths
within a storm
The total intensity Y(t) of rainfall is the sum of all the active contributions at
time t:
Y(t) =

lXt_u(u)dN(t-u)

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H=0

where Xu(v) is the rainfall intensity at a time v after the beginning of a pulse
which arrived at time u.
The first- and second-order moments of Y(t) are given in RodriguezIturbe et al. (1987):
E[Y(t)] = nx., var[F(f)] = 2/ix2. and c^r) = 2y.x2^T,
V
V
V
autocorrelation function of lagr of the process Y(t).
These moments give:

where C^T) is the

E[Yfhy] = hE[Y(t)] = hfxx.

V
Then from Rodriguez-Iturbe et al. (1984):

(Al)

cov[7;.(/!), Yikm] = [ (h - I v | ). cY(v+kh) dv

(A2)

-h

Thus, for k = 0:
h

var[Y,.(/!)] = 2 f (h-v)c^v)v

(A3)

because of the symmetry of c^y).

The calculation of the integrals in the last two equations yields:
coy[Ylh),Y^h)]

fXx

^[e^

kr fl

+ e-^-2]e~

for k > 1

(A4)

V
and:
4W 2jS
var[Y[ ] = -L-[hv
h)

iff

- 1 +e~f"!]

(A5)

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

731

APPENDIX 2
Analytical expression of the total storm depth for a Bartlett-Lewis
Rectangular Pulse Model
The charateristic generating function of the random variable Z is given by:
(j>^t) = EJ?xp{izt}]
and from (4):
N

= E-XY EN[exp{itZXY}}
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P'l

ZEXJ[Ilexp{iXpYpt}]P{N=n}

From the independence of the cells, one obtains:

= UEx^txp{iXYt}]P{N=n}

(A6)

The probability P{N = ri) is given by:

,

, _ (ffLf-iexpl-ffL}

where L is the duration of activity of the storm, i.e. the time during which new
cells can be born. This is because the cells arrive according to a Poisson
process within the storm and that there is one cell associated with the beginning
of the storm.
Now calculate:
EXY[exp{iXpYpt}]

= EXY

g axpYpty
y=o

J1-

ZEx[X/}ET[Y/\
M J1
where Ex[XJp] and Ey[Yp] are given by the pdf of X and Y:
1
1
1/Mr
4>x(t) = i e x p { 0 - f - _ )x}dx =
_L_
V ^x
It..
nx
V/i-it
and since:

W) = E(ityEixq
y=o

j\

(A7)

732

C. Onofet al.

then:

f-

EVU] =

(A8)

(1W
Similarly:
0y(O = f i?exp{(if ij)x}<k

if it

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and since:

then:

Wl =

I
rf

Substituting (A8) and (A9) into (A7) gives:

^[exp^y}] =

l^f-^-

j-o j \ (Vfy.xy
and by substitution into (A6):
4>M = S

n=\

(j3L)n~lexp{-PL}

(-!)!

J=o(rj/ay

fi-i

00

This becomes, by using the fact that YJ = exp{w}:

n=0

4>Sf) = exp-|8( ^ ^ - 1 )
Will id

U\

(A10)
j=0(r,/nx)>

and by deriving this expression, the following moments can be computed:

Effl =

(<t>M)lf){0) nr
^
= Ll(pL + l)
i

[Z 2 ] =

(All)

ij

(d^O/d^KO)
i

* V ,o2i-2
= (Id)
(j3/Z/ + 6|3L + 4)

=*var[Z] = ( l i ) (4/3L + 3)

(A12)

Design rainfall modelling in the Thames catchment

E[Z3] =

733

;3

l x^tl^T^^,r
i i R2T2_
= (Liy(p
L
+15 $lLl + 30 0L +6)

so that:

E[(Z-Emn

^3^ _

(Px,

= (li)(6/3L-4)

6*2-4
=> 5 =

(A13)

()/4BL + 3 )

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is the coefficient of skewness.

Remarks
1.
2.

Note that the skewness will not necessarily be equal to 1.14 which is the
skewness of an EV-I Gumbel distribution.
Equations (All) and (A 12) used in the calibration are a function of the
duration of activity L. This is not known for real storms, but since the
average cell duration is small, i.e. 1/T/. The actual observed storm
duration, i.e. the period during which the storm is alive, can be approximated by the duration of activity L. Numerical simulations have shown
that this introduces a maximum error of the order of 5 % for the total
storm depth.