A regional model of low flow for southern Taiwan

The primary purpose of this study is to develop regional models of the lower part of flow duration curves (LPFDCs) to synthesize low-flow characteristics at ungauged sites in southern Taiwan. Because of the close relationship between low strearnflow regimes and hydrogeological features, the model development first involved delimiting homogeneous hydrogeological regions by using two-step cluster analysis. Each homogeneous region was then discriminated by an equation developed on tire basis of its hydrogeological features, which was then used to determine Which of three sets of regional LPFDC models would be appropriate for a particular ungauged site. Each of the three sets of regional LPFDC models were developed using both conventional multivariate statistical regression and fuzzy regression. Thirty-four stream-gauged watersheds located in southern Taiwan provide the data set. The study results reveal that the regional LPFDC models developed in this study could be applied reasonably at ungauged sites. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.