DESIGN RAINFALL MODELING IN THE THAMES CATCHMENT

This paper examines methodologies for the simulation of storms for the purpose of design flood generation in the Thames region. Existing met hods are reviewed and two new approaches are proposed. One combines po int profiles of storms extracted from long rainfall records with depth -duration-frequency statistics. The other uses a stochastic rainfall m odel based upon the Poisson point process to generate data. Rainfall e vents simulated by these two methods are compared and the flood statis tics obtained by inputting these events into a rainfall-runoff model a re examined for a small catchment in Surrey, England. The Poisson base d model is recommended as the more reliable.