Graphical Hydrological Data Analysis

Hydrological relationships are often complex and nonlinear, and being able to simplify and interpret data governing such relationships is a vital component of hydrologic studies. Identifying temporal patterns and trends is a very common form of graphical data analysis in hydrology. Seasonal and long-term variances in such datasets are easier to inspect graphically. For example, seasonal patterns or potential changes induced by climatic transitions in rainfall or river flow can be easily discerned from a time series graph. Understanding these patterns and trends visually is important before applying more robust statistical measures to them.