TL-Moments Approach: Application of non-Stationary GEV Model in Flood Frequency Analysis

The non-stationarity in hydrological records is a significant concerning area of interest within the field of flood risk management. Ignoring the non-stationary behaviour in flood series will result in a substantial bias in floods quantile. Hence, the non-stationary flood frequency analysis appeared to be an appropriate option to maintain the independent and identically distributed (IID) assumptions in sample observation. This paper utilized the Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) distribution to analyze extreme flood series. The time-varying moment technique, namely the L-moment and TL-moment methods are employed to estimate the non-stationary model (GEV 1, GEV 2, and GEV 3) in the flood series. The ADF test, Mann-Kendall trend test, and Spearman’s Rho test showed that two out of ten streamflow stations in Johor, Malaysia demonstrated a non-stationary behaviour in the annual maximum streamflow. Results from the simulation study demonstrate a consistent performance on the non-stationary model. Furthermore, the TL-moments method could efficiently predict the flood event estimated at quantiles of the higher return periods.

Spatio-temporal change in rainfall over five different climatic regions of India

The present study deals with the estimation of dependences, spatio-temporal trends, change points, and stationarity in rainfall and rainy day series (1901–2013) for five (out of six) different climatic regions of India. Only one-fourth of the station rainfall and rainy day datasets exhibits long-term dependence on an annual and seasonal basis. The presence of lag-one serial correlation is prominent for almost all the climatic regions of India. The significant decreasing trend is found mainly for the stations of semi-arid and humid sub-tropical regions. The magnitude of rainfall is decreasing for most parts of the study area by 10% for annual and monsoon seasons. The change point is presented in a smaller number of stations. Non-stationary behaviour is observed for the rainy day series of semi-arid and humid sub-tropical regions, which may increase the temporal variability of rainfall over the same regions. The findings of this study could be very useful for the planning and management of water resources of different climatic regions of India.

Using UNSEEN trends to detect decadal changes in 100-year precipitation extremes

Sample sizes of observed climate extremes are typically too small to reliably constrain return period estimates when there is non-stationary behaviour. To increase the historical record 100-fold, we apply the UNprecedented Simulated Extreme ENsemble (UNSEEN) approach, by pooling ensemble members and lead times from the ECMWF seasonal prediction system SEAS5. We fit the GEV distribution to the UNSEEN ensemble with a time covariate to facilitate detection of changes in 100-year precipitation values over a period of 35 years (1981–2015). Applying UNSEEN trends to 3-day precipitation extremes over Western Norway substantially reduces uncertainties compared to estimates based on the observed record and returns no significant linear trend over time. For Svalbard, UNSEEN trends suggests there is a significant rise in precipitation extremes, such that the 100-year event estimated in 1981 occurs with a return period of around 40 years in 2015. We propose a suite of methods to evaluate UNSEEN and highlight paths for further developing UNSEEN trends to investigate non-stationarities in climate extremes.

Stationary distributions of systems with discreteness-induced transitions

We provide a theoretical analysis of some autocatalytic reaction networks exhibiting the phenomenon of discreteness-induced transitions. The family of networks that we address includes the celebrated Togashi and Kaneko model. We prove positive recurrence, finiteness of all moments and geometric ergodicity of the models in the family. For some parameter values, we find the analytic expression for the stationary distribution and discuss the effect of volume scaling on the stationary behaviour of the chain. We find the exact critical value of the volume for which discreteness-induced transitions disappear.

Establishing Raw Acceleration Thresholds to Classify Sedentary and Stationary Behaviour in Children

This study aimed to: (1) compare acceleration output between ActiGraph (AG) hip and wrist monitors and GENEActiv (GA) wrist monitors; (2) identify raw acceleration sedentary and stationary thresholds for the two brands and placements; and (3) validate the thresholds during a free-living period. Twenty-seven from 9- to 10-year-old children wore AG accelerometers on the right hip, dominant- and non-dominant wrists, GA accelerometers on both wrists, and an activPAL on the thigh, while completing seven sedentary and light-intensity physical activities, followed by 10 minutes of school recess. In a subsequent study, 21 children wore AG and GA wrist monitors and activPAL for two days of free-living. The main effects of activity and brand and a significant activity × brand × placement interaction were observed (all p < 0.0001). Output from the AG hip was lower than the AG wrist monitors (both p < 0.0001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves established AG sedentary thresholds of 32.6 mg for the hip, 55.6 mg and 48.1 mg for dominant and non-dominant wrists respectively. GA wrist thresholds were 56.5 mg (dominant) and 51.6 mg (non-dominant). Similar thresholds were observed for stationary behaviours. The AG non-dominant threshold came closest to achieving equivalency with activPAL during free-living.

Identification of Flood-Rich and Flood-Poor Periods by Using Annual Maximum Series of Floods in Spain

Currently, there is general concern about the non-stationary behaviour of flood series. Consequently, several studies have been conducted to identify large-scale patterns of change in such flood series. In Spain, a general decreasing trend was found in the period 1959–2009. However, a multi-temporal trend analysis, with varying starting and ending years, showed that trend signs depended on the period considered. Flood oscillations could influence the results, especially when flood-rich and flood-poor periods are located at the beginning or end of the series. In Spain, a flood- rich period in 1950–1970 seemed to lead to the generalised decreasing trend, as it was located at the beginning of the flood series. Nevertheless, the multi-temporal test can only find potential flood- rich and flood-poor periods qualitatively. A methodology has been developed to identify statistically significant flood-rich and flood-poor periods. The expected variability of floods under the stationarity assumption is compared with the variability of floods in observed flood series. The methodology is applied to the longest streamflow series available in Spain. Seven gauging stations located in near-natural catchments, with continuous observations in the period 1942–2014, are selected. Both annual maximum and peak-over-threshold series are considered. Flood-rich and flood-poor periods in terms of flood magnitudes and the annual count of exceedances over a given threshold are identified. A flood-rich period in the beginning of the series and a flood-poor period at its end are identified in most of the selected sites. Accordingly, a flood-rich period placed at the beginning of the series, followed by a flood-poor period, influence the generalised decreasing trend in the flood series previously found in Spain.

Spinning Behaviour of Diametral Acoustic Modes in Deep Axisymmetric Cavities With Chamfered Edges

Spinning behaviour of diametral acoustic modes associated with self-sustained flow oscillations in a deep, axisymmetric cavity located in a long pipeline was investigated experimentally. High-amplitude pressure fluctuations resulted from the excitation of the diametral acoustic modes by the fully-turbulent flow in the pipeline. The unsteady pressure was measured at three equally spaced azimuthal locations at the bottom of the cavity. This arrangement allowed calculation of the azimuthal orientation of the acoustic modes, which were classified as stationary, partially spinning or spinning. Introduction of shallow chamfers to the upstream and the downstream edges of the cavity resulted in changes of azimuthal orientation and spinning behaviour of the acoustic modes. In addition, introduction of splitter plates in the cavity led to pronounced change in the spatial orientation and the spinning behaviour of the acoustic modes. The short splitter plates changed the behaviour of the dominant acoustic modes from partially spinning to stationary, while the long splitter plates enforced the stationary behaviour across all resonant acoustic modes.