Variability in Canadian Seasonal Streamflow Information and Its Implication for Hydrometric Network Design

Hydrologic extremes such as severe storms, floods, and droughts are inherently seasonal in nature and remain the main concern in designing hydrometric networks. In general, hydrometric networks have been designed without paying particular attention to the effect of seasonal streamflow information (SSI) at gauging stations on the efficiency of the hydrometric networks. This paper evaluates the effect of SSI on streamflow networks based on nonparametric implementation of entropy theory using the kernel density approach for estimating the mutual information between gauging stations on a seasonal basis. Overall, it is shown that the SSI of individual stations is season dependent and the efficiency of the streamflow network is also season dependent, therefore the effect of seasonality should be incorporated in future hydrometric network design. This methodology was applied at five river basins in Canada and its role for network design is discussed.