Paleohydrology: long-term bounds on unwarranted extrapolation in modeling

摘要

Perceptions of hydrologic risk are controlled by interpretations and extrapolations from common events to evetns well beyond the range of common experience. If measures of those common events are distorted or inaccurate, then so will be expectations of what constitutes a prudent level of conservatism. A common measure of hydrologic risk is peak discharge, a measure for which traditional estimates from early historic floods and floods in ungaged basins may be subject to considerable uncertainty. In many areas, the largest peak discharge estiamtes on record are from early historic floods or from inditrect measurements of extreme floods in ungaged basins. Excessive consdervatism in the characterization of these foods can lead to unwarranted perceptions of flood risk.