XX Abbay Proposal

ARBA MINCH UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF
POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
DEVELOPMENT OF
FLOW- DURATION- FREQUENCY
RELATIONSHIP
FOR ABBAY BASIN
For the Partial Fulfillment of MSc Degree in

Hydrology and Water Resource Management
BY TSEGAYE GASHIE
ADVISOR: Dr.SEMU AYALEW

I/ INTRODUCTION
II General Description of the study Area
III Problem Description
IV Objective of the study
V/ Scope of the study
VI/ Methodologyof the study
VII/Expected out put
I/ INTRODUCTION
The Abay Basin is by most criteria the most important river in Ethiopia. It accounts for
almost 20% of Ethiopia’s land area, 50% of its total annual run off and 25% of its
population. The Abay River has an average annual runoff of about 49 BCM. The rivers of
the Abay basin contribute an average about 62% the average Nile total at Aswan.
Together with contributions of the Baro-Akobo and Tekeze rivers, Ethiopia accounts for
86 percent of run off at Aswan (BCEOM phase 2 part 1, 1998).
Flow-duration frequency curves, were introduced on flood analysis by Gale’a and

Prudhmme (1993). These types of curves were long time used in their empirical form,
since the beginning of this century for hydropower analysis, and without any type of
probabilistic analysis. They were known as classified flow curves. Reason for this was
that engineers were mostly interested on frequent and average flows to produce electricity
and not on the extreme flows regime.
Most often, flood frequency analysis describes a flood event only by its peak. However
the true flood severity is also defined by its volume and duration. The QDF approach
analysis maximum average flows over different durations d (d= 1,3,---,N days) similar to
intensity duration frequency curves, each of the QDF curves represents the flood
frequency distribution for the duration d.
II General Description of the study Area

The Abay River Basin lies in west Ethiopia between latitudes of 7 045’N and 12046’N;
and longitudes of 34005’E and 39045’E. The basin has an area of about 199,812 sq km. It
covers about 17.5 percent of Ethiopia’s land area (BCEOM phase 3, part 1(1998).
The climate of the Abay basin is dominated by two factors; its near-equatorial location
and an altitude ranging from 590 meter above sea level to more than 4,000 meters. The
influence of these factors determines the rich variety of local climates, ranging from hot
and desert-like along the Sudan border to temperate on the high plateaus, and cold on the
mountain peaks.
There are three recognized seasons. The main rainy season (kiremt) lasts generally from
June-September during which South West wind brings rains from the Atlantic Ocean.
About 70-90 percent of total rainfall occurs during this season, which is also typified by
minimum level of sun shine, low variation in daily temperatures and high relative
humidity. A dry seam (Beg) lasts from October to January during which clear skies are
associated with maximum sunshine, high daily temperature variation, and low relative
humidity. Finally, the minor season (Belg) lasts from February to May during which
south-east winds bring the small rains from the Indian Ocean and temperatures are at
their highest. The timing and duration of these seasons varies considerably by location.
Generally the mean annual rainfall over the whole basin is about 1,400 mm with mean
vapors transpiration about 1,300mm (BCEOM phase 3, part 1998)
The Abbay basin may be classified under three main land forms the plateau high lands
which generally lie between about 2000-2700masl and which comprise the eastern
portion of the basin, the plateau valley transect the high lands and at their lower ends fall
sharply into deep eroded canyons which join the Abbay river itself; and the eroded hills
and plains which lie along the western boundary of the high plateau falling to the west
and north-west forwards the Sudan border. High mountains over the plateau highlands.
The Abbay river rises in the center of the catchments and develops its course in a
clockwise spiral in a deep gorge, collecting tributaries along its 922Km length from Lake
Tana to Sudan border(BCEOM.Phase 2 April 1999)
III Problem Description

A common problem encountered in many aspects of water resources engineering is that
of estimating the return period extreme hydrological events such as floods, for a site or a
group of sites (cunnane,1995). A flood frequency curves describe the relationship
between the magnitude of river peak flows and return period. The Abay basin, which the
most important basin in Ethiopia is lacking availability flow-duration Frequency curves.
Lacking of such important curve leads to inaccurate determination structures. Over
design or under design of hydraulic structures. Over design involves unnecessary high
constructor costs while under design may result in excessive future damage and losses.
In addition one of the major problems in Ethiopia generally, and particularly in Abay
basin is that even though, limited hydro metrological networks exist in the country the
data bases (data collection, analysis, proper compilation and publication) is not in
accordance to the day to day growing demand. In this respect, these pertinent data and
information for the planning and design of water resources, highway, and other project is
not readily available. This can be expressed by the non availability of adequately
processed and compiled standard information like representative flow duration frequency
curves and soon.
IV Objective of the study
The overall objective of the study is to analyses the high flow hydrology within the basin
and establishes a relationship between the high flows, duration and their return period.
This would incorporate generation of the independent high flows at the gauging station
and then high flow frequency analysis to forecast the availability of high flow, for
different water resources management purpose and for the design of different wate4r
resources and other engineering structures at different selected locations.
The study also aims at the generation of QDF parameters and constructs curves.
Unlike the gauged catchments where there is an adequate observed stream flow records,
un gauged catchments pose a different problem. Thus a regionalization approach would
have been used for construction of regional curve flow frequency estimation which
enables prediction of the high flows at un gauged sites.
V/ Scope of the study

The study will focus on the development of flow duration-frequency relationships for
both gauged and un gauged areas of the basin. As the work main initial approach, it may
require further improvement and research on aspects beyond the scope and other
limitations that could happen on the courses of study.
VI/ Methodology of the study

Despite the lager volume of work in flood frequency analysis over the past three decades
and the corresponding large number of publications, there are certain problems that are
still fully resolved and there is no consensus on how to proceed in the best way to deal
with these problems. An example of these is the estimation of extreme flood events with
return periods that exceed the length of the observed record. Extreme events are highly
dependent on the right portion of the underlying florid frequency distribution which in
most difficult to estimate from the observed data .Berlint etal. (1996) and hillers (1998)
have dealt with their problem by analyzing the fail of the distribution thorough external
value analysis and the quintile-quintile plot.
Generally the methodology of the student will comprise the following basic operations:
A. Fixing the no of important gauging stations according to their importance
for different projects.
B. Data collection
- Hydrological data
- Meteorological data
- Basin characteristics data
C. Extraction of high flow(maximum flow)
D. Testing on hydrological data
Two basic assumptions in statistical flood frequency analysis are the independence and
stationary of the data series. In addition, the assumption that the data come from the same
distribution (homogeneity) is made. The following tests, (Bob’ee and Ashkar, 1991)
would be employed for the study
—Homogeneity and stationary tests

The statistic is used to test the hypothesis homogeneity at
significance level X by comparing it with the standard normal verities for the significance
level programs mutest and mw 2 test are used to compute the statistics.
- Test for outliers
An outlier is an observation that deviates significantly from the bulk of the data, which
may be due to errors in data collection, or recording, or due to nature cause. The presence
of outliers in the data causes difficulties when fitting a distribution to the data. How and
high outliers are both possible and have different effects on the analysis. The Grubbs and
Beck (1972) test (G-B) may be and to detect outliers. In this test the quantities XH and
XL are calculated by using
XH= exp ( + HNs)
XL= exp ( - KNs)
Where and s are the mean and standard deviation of the natural logarithms of sample
respectively and KN is the G-B statistic tabulated for various sample size and
significance level by Grubbs and Beck (1972)
E. Selection and Evaluation of parent distribution

I. Conventional moments
The following work for test (selection) would be done
1. Moment latish Diagrams (MRDS)
2. Probability plot
3. Selection of distributions
3.1 Chi-square and Pis-Test
3.2 Kolmogorove- Sminov Test
II. Probability weighted moment
The following duties would be conducted
1. L. moment patio diagrams
2. Tests based on L- moments
2.1 Grandness- of fit tests
2.2 Regional Homogeneity Tests
F/ Parameter Estimation
- Method of moment (MOM)
- Method of likelihood (ML)
- Method of probability weighted moments
G/ Quintile Estimation
- Method of moment (MOM)
- Method of maximum likelihood (ML)
- Method of probability weighted moments (PWM)
H/ Developing flow- Duration- Frequency relation ship for areas
having gauging station.

I/ Regionalization of homogeneous areas
J/ Developing flow-Duration-frequency relationship for un gauged areas
VII/Expected out put

Designers and planners of water resource projects must consider high flow and design
flow to implement the new project and manage the existing structures (systems). Flow
duration frequency curve can serve a manger or designer to know the amount of water in
a required duration.
The establishment of ODF- curves for the basin is an important task for various
engineering and management works of water resource system such as to design, build and
mange irrigation, water supply, hydropower and flood hazard protection.

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XX Abbay Proposal

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ARBA MINCH UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF

For the Partial Fulfillment of MSc Degree in

ADVISOR: Dr.SEMU AYALEW

Flow-duration frequency curves, were introduced on flood analysis by Gale’a and

II General Description of the study Area

III Problem Description

V/ Scope of the study

VI/ Methodology of the study

—Homogeneity and stationary tests

- Test for outliers

E. Selection and Evaluation of parent distribution

having gauging station.

J/ Developing flow-Duration-frequency relationship for un gauged areas

VII/Expected out put

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