Efficacy of Nakagami-m Distribution Function for Deriving Unit Hydrograph

This paper applies the Nakagami-m distribution for the derivation of unit hydrograph (UH). The applicability of this distribution was verified using the data from 13 watersheds and results were compared with other distributions, viz., Gamma (GM), Beta, normal (NL), log-normal (LN), Weibull (WB), logistic (LG), generalized logistic (GLG) and Pearson type 3 (PT3). Based on visual comparison as well as statistical measures, such as root mean square error (RMSE), coefficient of efficiency (CE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and application efficiency (η <Subscript>dist.</Subscript>), it was found that the Nakagami-m distribution yielded satisfactory UHs and direct runoff hydrographs for watersheds of various sizes. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010