GENERALIZED SKEW COEFFICIENTS FOR FLOOD FREQUENCY ANALYSIS1

ABSTRACT: In order to promote a uniform and consistent approach for floodflow frequency studies, the U.S. Water Resources Council has recommended the use of the log-Pearson type III distribution with a generalized skew coefficient. This paper investigates various methods of determining generalized skew coefficients. A new method is introduced that determines generalized skew coefficients using a weighting procedure based upon the variance of regional (map) skew coefficients and the variance of sample skew coefficients. The variance of skew derived from sample data is determined using either of two non-parametric methods called the jackknife or bootstrap. Applications of the new weighting procedure are presented along with an experimental study to test various weighting procedures to derive generalized skew coefficients.