For design of water control measures and for delineation of floodplains for land use regulation, a design flow rate is required. Commonly, this is a flow rate of selected probability of exceedence. Historically, when a historical flow record is not available for flood frequency analysis, the required design flow rate is estimated with a mathematical model of watershed runoff (such as HEC-1). The flow rates computed from the model are best estimates.
The design flow rates serve directly or indirectly as information required for certain planning and design studies. However, these best estimate flow rates and the data derived from them, such as water surface elevation, include a degree of uncertainty. Historically, engineers have accounted for this uncertainty with some factor of safety, such as an arbitrarily selected addition to the best estimate flow or an arbitrarily selected freeboard distance added to the computed water surface elevation. But, these arbitrarily selected values fail to model the impacts of and the range of uncertainties.
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