The Peak Over Threshold Method (POT) was used as an alternative technique to the traditional analysis of annual discharge maxima of the Danube River. The POT method was applied to a time-series of daily discharge values covering a period of 60 years (1931-1990) at the following gauge stations: Achleiten, Kienstock, Wien, Bratislava and Nagymaros. The first part of the paper presents the use of the POT method and how it was applied to daily discharges. All mean daily discharges exceeding a defined threshold were considered in the POT analysis. Based on the POT waves independence criteria the maximum daily discharge data were selected. Two theoretical log-normal (LN) and Log-Pearson III (LP3) distributions were used to calculate the probability of exceeding annual maximum discharges. Performance of the POT method was compared to the theoretical distributions (LN, LP3). The influence of the data series length on the estimation of the N-year discharges by POT method was carried out too. Therefore, with regard to later regulations along the Danube channel bank the 40, 20 and 10-year time data series were chosen in early of the 60-year period and second analysed time data series were selected from the end of the 60-year period. Our results suggest that the POT method can provide adequate and comparable estimates of N-year discharges for more stations with short temporal coverage. and Príspevok sa zaoberá analýzou extrémnych hydrologických udalostí na Dunaji metódou Peak Over Threshold (POT). Metóda POT sa používa ako alternatíva určovania N-ročných prietokov k metóde ročných maxím pri analýzach extrémnych hydrologických udalostí. Pre výskyt vrcholových prietokov sa zvyčajne predpokladá Poissonova distribúcia. Základnými vstupnými údajmi pre štatistickú analýzu sú 60-ročné časové rady priemerných denných prietokov a 60-ročné rady maximálnych ročných prietokov v nami zvolených staniciach: Achleiten, Kienstock, Viedeň, Bratislava a Nagymaros - za obdobie 1931-1990. Extrémne hydrologické udalosti na Dunaji boli analyzované metódou POT, ktorá zahŕňa všetky maximálne denné prietoky povodní za dané obdobie, presahujúce zvolenú prahovú hodnotu. Na zostavenie teoretickej čiary prekročenia boli vybrané dve teoretické rozdelenia pravdepodobnosti: logaritmicko-normálne rozdelenie (LN) a Pearsonovo rozdelenie III. typu (LP III). Druhým cieľom príspevku bolo analyzovať vplyv zmeny dĺžky časového radu na odhad N-ročných prietokov. V práci boli 60-ročné časové rady údajov skrátené na 40, 20 a 10-ročné rady. V závere sme porovnali a zhodnotili získané výsledky štatistických odhadov N-ročných prietokov vo zvolených staniciach. Z výsledkov analýzy vyplýva, že metóda POT dáva pomerne dobré odhady N-ročných prietokov aj pre krátke časové rady údajov.
In this paper we focused on the history of floods and extreme flood frequency analysis of the upper Danube River at Bratislava. Firstly, we briefly describe the flood marks found on the Danube River in the region of Bratislava, Slovakia, and provide an account of the floods’ consequences. Secondly, we analyzed the annual maximum discharge series for the period 1876–2012, including the most recent flood of June 2013. Thirdly, we compare the values of T-year design discharge computed with and without incorporating the historic floods (floods of the years 1501, 1682, and 1787 into the 138-year series of annual discharge peaks). There are unfortunately only a few historic flood marks preserved in Bratislava, but there are very important and old marks in neighbouring Hainburg and other Austrian cities upstream to Passau. The calculated T-year maximum discharge of the Danube at Bratislava for the period 1876-2010 without and with historic flood values have been compared. Our analysis showed that without incorporating the historic floods from the years 1501, 1682, and 1787 the 1000-year discharge calculated only with data from the instrumented period 1876- 2013 is 14,188 m3 s -1 , and it is lower compared to the 1000-year discharge of 14,803 m3 s -1 when the three historic floods are included. In general, the T-year discharge is higher throughout the whole spectrum of T-year discharges (10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500-year discharge) when the three historic floods are included. Incorporating historic floods into a time series of maximum annual discharge seems to exert a significant effect on the estimates of low probability floods. This has important implications for flood managements and estimation of flood design discharge.
The problem of understand natural processes as factors that restrict, limit or even jeopardize the interests of human society is currently of great concern. The natural transformation of flood waves is increasingly affected and disturbed by artificial interventions in river basins. The Danube River basin is an area of high economic and water management importance. Channel training can result in changes in the transformation of flood waves and different hydrographic shapes of flood waves compared with the past. The estimation and evolution of the transformation of historical flood waves under recent river conditions is only possible by model simulations. For this purpose a nonlinear reservoir cascade model was constructed. The NLN-Danube nonlinear reservoir river model was used to simulate the transformation of flood waves in four sections of the Danube River from Kienstock (Austria) to Štúrovo (Slovakia) under relatively recent river reach conditions. The model was individually calibrated for two extreme events in August 2002 and June 2013. Some floods that occurred on the Danube during the period of 1991-2002 were used for the validation of the model. The model was used to identify changes in the transformational properties of the Danube channel in the selected river reach for some historical summer floods (1899, 1954 1965 and 1975). Finally, a simulation of flood wave propagation of the most destructive Danube flood of the last millennium (August 1501) is discussed.
The aim of the paper is to study spatial and temporal changes in the magnitude, duration and frequency of high flows in the Danube basin. A hydrological series of the mean daily discharges from 20 gauging stations (operated minimally since 1930) were used for the analysis of changes in the daily discharges. The high flow events were classified into three classes: high flow pulses, small floods, and large floods. For each year and for each class, the means of the peak discharges, the number and duration of events, and the rate of changes of the rising and falling limbs of the waves were determined. The long-term trends of the annual time series obtained were analyzed and statistically evaluated. The long-term high flow changes were found to be different in three individual high flow classes. The duration of the category of high flow pulses is decreasing at 19 stations on the Danube and is statistically significant at the Linz, Vienna, Bratislava and Orsova stations. The frequency of the high flow pulses is increasing in all 20 stations. Also, the rising and falling rates of the high flow pulse category are increasing at the majority of the stations. The long-term trends of the selected characteristics of the small floods are very similar to the trends of the high flow pulses, i.e., the duration of small floods is decreasing, and their mean number per year is increasing. In the category of large floods the changes were not proved.
Flood frequency analysis is usually performed as a univariate analysis of flood peaks using a suitable theoretical probability distribution of the annual maximum flood peaks or peak over threshold values. However, other flood attributes, such as flood volume and duration, are necessary for the design of hydrotechnical projects, too. In this study, the suitability of various copula families for a bivariate analysis of peak discharges and flood volumes has been tested. Streamflow data from selected gauging stations along the whole Danube River have been used. Kendall’s rank correlation coefficient (tau) quantifies the dependence between flood peak discharge and flood volume settings. The methodology is applied to two different data samples: 1) annual maximum flood (AMF) peaks combined with annual maximum flow volumes of fixed durations at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 60 days, respectively (which can be regarded as a regime analysis of the dependence between the extremes of both variables in a given year), and 2) annual maximum flood (AMF) peaks with corresponding flood volumes (which is a typical choice for engineering studies). The bivariate modelling of the extracted peak discharge - flood volume couples is achieved with the use of the Ali-Mikhail-Haq (AMH), Clayton, Frank, Joe, Gumbel, Hüsler-Reiss, Galambos, Tawn, Normal, Plackett and FGM copula families. Scatterplots of the observed and simulated peak discharge - flood volume pairs and goodness-of-fit tests have been used to assess the overall applicability of the copulas as well as observing any changes in suitable models along the Danube River. The results indicate that for the second data sampling method, almost all of the considered Archimedean class copula families perform better than the other copula families selected for this study, and that for the first method, only the upper-tail-flat copulas excel (except for the AMH copula due to its inability to model stronger relationships).
The main objective of this study is to develop a model procedure for predicting low flows for a large set of gauged basins located in the Rhine-Meuse area. The methodology is primarily based on the analysis of recession curves, river discharges being essentially provided by groundwater flow during drought period. Our objective is to use recession coefficients in order to calibrate base flow predictions coming out from a groundwater reservoir. Problems related to the temporal variability of recession coefficients are discussed. We come to the conclusion that lows flows prediction can be improved by implementing a new groundwater reservoir into the RR model based on our knowledge of low flow processes. and Jednou z požiadaviek Rámcovej smernice o vode (WFD, 2000/60/EC) je analýza trendov a dlhodobá predpoveď vývoja znečistenia povrchových tokov. Pri odhade vývoja znečistenia toku je potrebné brať do úvahy nielen možné zdroje znečistenia, ale je potrebné uvažovať aj s vývojom množstva vody v tokoch a so zvyšovaním teploty tokov v dôsledku očakávanej klimatickej zmeny a zmeny vo využívaní vodných zdrojov. V príspevku je analyzovaný vývoj mesačných koncentrácií vybraných ukazovateľov kvality vody v toku Dunaja v stanici Bratislava (napr. Chl-a, Ca, EC, SO4 2-, Cl- , O2, BSK5, N-celk, PO4-P, NO3-N, NO2-N a pod.) za obdobie r. 1991-2005. Za účelom dlhodobej predpovede koncentrácií každého ukazovateľa kvality vody sme na základe štatistických testov vybrali najlepší autoregresný Box-Jenkinsov model s dvoma regresormi: 1. prietokmi a 2. teplotami vody. Scenáre pre mesačné prietoky a mesačné teploty vody boli vytvorené pre tri stavy: i) priemerné podmienky - medián prietokov a teploty vody; ii) nízke prietoky a vysoké teploty vody; a iii) vysoké prietoky a nízke teploty vody. Tieto scenárové podmienky boli vypočítané z denných údajov z obdobia 1931-2005 ako percentily (1. percentil, medián, 99. percentil). Použijúc tieto scenáre sme vybranými Box-Jenkinsovými modelmi s dvoma regresormi simulovali extrémne mesačné hodnoty vybraných ukazovateľom kvality vody v Dunaji pre extrémne hydrologické a teplotné podmienky.