We highlight the need for power evaluation in the application of null hypothesis significance tests for trend detection in extreme event analysis. In a wide range of conditions, depending on the underlying distribution of data, the test power may reach unacceptably low values. We propose the use of a parametric approach, based on model selection criteria, that allows one to choose the null hypothesis, to select the level of significance, and to check the test power using Monte Carlo experiments.

While conventional approaches focus on flood designs at individual locations, there are many situations requiring an understanding of spatial dependence of floods at multiple locations. This research describes a new framework for analyzing flood characteristics across civil infrastructure systems, including conditional and joint probabilities of floods. This work leads to a new flood estimation paradigm, which focuses on the risk of the entire system rather than each system element in isolation.

This study proposes a procedure for the generation of daily discharge data which considers temporal dependence both within short timescales and across different years. The simulation procedure can be applied to individual and multiple sites. It can be used for various applications such as the design of hydropower reservoirs, the assessment of flood risk or the assessment of drought persistence, and the estimation of the risk of multi-year droughts.

We present the methods addressing the multivariate hydrologic design applied to the engineering practice under nonstationary conditions. A dynamic C-vine copula allowing for both time-varying marginal distributions and a time-varying dependence structure is developed to capture the nonstationarities of multivariate flood distribution. Then, the multivariate hydrologic design under nonstationary conditions is estimated through specifying the design criterion by average annual reliability.

A new method is proposed to solve the stochastic unsteady open-channel flow system in only one single simulation, as opposed to the many simulations usually done in the popular Monte Carlo approach. The derivation of this new method gave a deterministic and linear Fokker–Planck equation whose solution provided a powerful and effective approach for quantifying the ensemble behavior and variability of such a stochastic system, regardless of the number of parameters causing its uncertainty.

A newly proposed method is applied to solve a stochastic unsteady open-channel flow system (with an uncertain roughness coefficient) in only one simulation. After comparing its results to those of the Monte Carlo simulations, the new method was found to adequately predict the temporal and spatial evolution of the probability density of the flow variables of the system. This revealed the effectiveness, strength, and time efficiency of this new method as compared to other popular approaches.

Rainfall is the primary trigger of landslides. However, the rainfall intensity is not uniform in space, which causes more landslides in the area of intense rainfall. The primary objective of this paper is to quantify spatial correlation characteristics of three landslide-triggering large storms in Hong Kong. The spatial maximum rolling rainfall is represented by a trend surface and a random field of residuals. The scales of fluctuation of the residuals are found between 5 km and 30 km.

This paper presents the probabilistic approach to evaluate design floods in a changing climate, adapted in this case to the northern territories. For the Russian Arctic, the regions are delineated, where it is suggested to correct engineering hydrological calculations to account for climate change. An example of the calculation of a maximal discharge of 1 % exceedance probability for the Nadym River at Nadym is provided.

In this research, we explored how the sampling uncertainty of flood variables (flood peak, volume, etc.) can reflect on a structural variable, which in our case was the maximum water level (MWL) of a reservoir controlled by a dam. Next, we incorporated additional information from different sources for a better estimation of the uncertainty in the probability of exceedance of the MWL. Results showed the importance of providing confidence intervals in the risk assessment of a structure.

A flood frequency analysis using a 400-year historical flood record was carried out using a stationary model (based on maximum likelihood estimators) and a non-stationary model that incorporates external covariates (climatic and environmental). The stationary model was successful in providing an average discharge around which value flood quantiles estimated by non-stationary models fluctuate through time.