Frequency analysis of precipitation extremes in Heihe River basin based on generalized Pareto distribution

Precipitation extremes could cause a series of social, environmental and ecological problems. This paper, taking Heihe River basin, the second largest inland river basin in China, as the study area, focused on the frequency analysis of precipitation extremes based on the historical daily precipitation records (1960–2010) at nine stations. Generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) was employed for fitting the peaks over threshold (POT) series, in which Hill plot, percentile method and the average annual occurrence number were used to select the threshold in GPD. Maximum likelihood estimate and L-moment were used to estimate the parameters. The inherent assumptions for POT series were investigated by auto-correlation coefficient, Mann–Kendall test, Spearman’s ρ test, cumulative deviation test and Worsley likelihood ratio test. 10, 20, 50 and 100 year precipitation extremes for Heihe River basin were calculated and analyzed as well. It was found the POT series derived from several methods involved were approximately independent and stationary, and GPD could give a satisfactory fit to the POT series for each station. For the upper and lower reaches, the frequency of precipitation extremes at long return periods (20, 50 year or longer) presented increasing in recent years, and the intensity of the highest precipitation were getting stronger as well. The intensity of the highest precipitation extremes for the lower reach (21 and 35 %) increased higher than those for the upper reach (10 and 11 %). For the middle reach, the frequency of precipitation extremes (over 20 year return level) was not found to be increased. The uneven spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation extremes for the basin especially for the upper and lower reaches were getting more and more serious, which would bring great challenges for the local water allocation and management.