Prediction of streamflow regimes over large geographical areas: interpolated flow–duration curves for the Danube region

Flow-duration curves (FDCs) are essential to support decisions on water resources management, and their regionalization is fundamental for the assessment of ungauged basins. In comparison with calibrated rainfall-runoff models, statistical methods provide data-driven estimates representing a useful benchmark. The objective of this work is the interpolation of FDCs from 500 discharge gauging stations in the Danube. To this aim we use total negative deviation top-kriging (TNDTK), as multi-regression models are shown to be unsuitable for representing FDCs across all durations and sites. TNDTK shows a high accuracy for the entire Danube region, with overall Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency values computed in a leave-p-out cross-validation scheme (p equal to one site, one-third and half of the sites), all above 0.88. A reliability measure based on kriging variance is attached to each interpolated FDC at 4000 prediction nodes. The GIS layer of regionalized FDCs is made available for broader use in the region.