Development of a Maximum Entropy-Archimedean Copula-Based Bayesian Network Method for Streamflow Frequency Analysis—A Case Study of the Kaidu River Basin, China

Frequency analysis of streamflow is critical for water-resources system planning, water conservancy projects and the mitigation of hydrological extremes events. In this study, a maximum entropy-Archimedean copula-based Bayesian network (MECBN) method has been proposed for frequency analysis of monthly streamflow in the Kaidu River Basin, which integrates the maximum entropy-Archimedean copula (MEAC) and Bayesian network methods into a general framework. MECBN is effective for representing the uncertainties that exist in model representation, preserving the distributional characteristics of streamflow records and addressing the correlation structure between streamflow pairs. Application to the Kaidu River Basin shows a good performance of MECBN in describing the historical data of this basin in China. The results indicate that the interactions between two adjacent monthly streamflow pairs are non-linear. There is upper tail dependence between monthly streamflow pairs. The dependence coefficients including Spearman’s rho, Kendall’s tau, and the upper tail dependence coefficient are in inverse proportion of monthly streamflow values in the Kaidu River Basin, due to the fact that other factors (i.e., rainfall, snow melting, evapotranspiration rate and requirement of water use) provide more contributions to the streamflow in the flooding season. These findings can be used for providing vital information in the prevention and control of hydrological extremes and to further water resources planning in Kaidu River Basin.