Unbiased estimation of flood risk with the GEV distribution

Conventional flood frequency analysis is concerned with providing an unbiased estimate of the magnitude of the design flow exceeded with the probabilityp, but sampling uncertainties imply that such estimates will, on average, be exceeded more frequently. An alternative approach is therefore, to derive an estimator which gives an unbiased estimate of flow risk: the difference between the two magnitudes reflects uncertainties in parameter estimation. An empirical procedure has been developed to estimate the mean true exceedance probabilities of conventional estimates made using a GEV distribution fitted by probability weighted moments, and adjustment factors have been determined to enable the estimation of flood magnitudes exceeded with, on average, the desired probability.