Regional analyses of 7-day low flows in Quebec

Regional analysis of 7-day low flows yields an estimating tool that is very useful for determining the quality of water following a wastewater discharge, identifying the flow associated with a storage reservoir or establishing a firm yield for industrial, agricultural or consumption purposes. Based on the flows observed at 119 gauging sites in Quebec, six homogenous regions were delimited using discordance and heterogeneity tests. Several normalized regional distributions were then fitted using the method of L-moments. The parameters involved were estimated for both winter and summer low flows.