Application of Discriminant Analysis to Estimate Instantaneous Maximum Discharge for Catchments in West of Iran

Accurate estimate of flood flows at selected return periods is a fundamental step in flood control and design of hydraulic structures. Due to the inadequacy or unavailability of flood flow records in several western catchments of Iran, traditional regional flood frequency methods lead to remarkable estimate errors, particularly for long return periods. In this research, discriminant analysis is used to allocate catchments short of adequate records to defined regions, and rare discharges for the catchments are estimated subsequently. The discriminant model validation is evaluated and the results show low estimate errors.