Regional Skew Map for New South Wales in Australia for Flood Frequency Analysis
摘要
This paper develops a high-resolution regional skewness map with Log-Pearson Type III (LP3) distributions for New South Wales (NSW), Australia, aimed at improving spatial understanding of flood behavior and supporting flood estimation in both gauged and ungauged basins. Using annual maximum flow (AMF) records from 85 streamflow gauging stations with minimum record length of 50-year, the LP3 distributions is fitted at each site to estimate the shape (skewness) parameter, which controls the tail heaviness and extremity of flood events. The resulting station-wise skewness estimates are spatially interpolated using geostatistical methods to produce a continuous skewness surface across the state. The skew map reveals clear spatial patterns, with high positive skewness dominating arid and semi-arid inland regions-indicating greater potential for extreme floods-while lower or near-zero skewness is observed in coastal and high-rainfall zones. This map provides hydrologically meaningful insights into floods and serves as a robust tool for enhancing flood frequency analysis. It also enables more accurate flood quantile estimation in data-scarce areas by incorporating spatially coherent skewness information.