Comparative study of maximum and partial duration series in flood frequency analysis (Case study in Talar and Babolrud watersheds in Mazandaran Province)

Flood frequency analysis can be considered as one of important methods of flood estimation, forecasting and management in river basins. Structural river engineering and flood control practices are major convenient flood mitigation approaches, whereas, flood frequency analysis is the first steps to achieve this purposes. In this paper maximum and partial duration series as two convenient flood frequency analysis methods were applied in some hydrometric stations in Talar and Babolrud basin in Mazandaran province, regarding to the lack of the recorded flood data series or missing data in hydrometric stations and necessitate of application of more accurate methods. This research has shown that the results of maximum and partial duration series are very sensitive to the length of the data series, which is depends on the existing of the extreme flood values in observation series. It can be concluded that application of partial duration series can have reasonable estimation in the case of not suitable and short period of data series, in comparison with application of maximum series with an enough data series period. This result can show the capability and importance of partial duration series for flood frequency analysis in hydrometric station with short duration data series.