Regionalization of a flood frequency estimation method over metropolitan France: the SHYREG method
The SHYREG method was developed for regional flood frequency analysis to estimate peak flow and flood discharges for various durations (1 h to 72 h) and return periods (2 to 100 years), according to a spatialized approach. For each 1-km2 pixel, the method combines an hourly rainfall model with a simple rainfall-runoff model. The discharge flood frequency estimates are deduced directly from the empirical frequency distributions for the maximum values, which are extracted from very long simulated discharge time series. This gives a database of 1-km2 gridded flood quantiles that can be aggregated for any catchment by using an areal averaging method. The method was regionalized for metropolitan France, excluding Corsica, using flow data from 1,359 gauging stations and regional hydroclimatic and hydrogeological characteristics to describe the variability of the rainfall-runoff model parameter. Such regionalization provides flood discharge quantiles for any catchment in metropolitan France for various durations and return periods. Regarding the method performance, accurate estimates of flood quantiles were produced for peak discharge and mean daily discharge for return periods of two to 10 years for gauged basins in dependent validation and cross-validation. A minimum NASH criterion of 80% is obtained for peak flow and mean daily discharge for the catchments not used in the regionalization process.