GoldSim Tutorial: Calculating and Displaying Annual Peak Flow Statistics

Posted by Jason Lillywhite

Reliable peak river flow statistics are necessary for effective design, planning, and risk communication. GoldSim can calculate a range of statistics for flood frequency analysis, such as the flow associated with a specific return period (e.g., the 99th percentile flow) or the timing distribution of the annual peak flow. This tutorial walks you through building a model to calculate these types of statistics in GoldSim, focusing on displaying results on a dashboard: 

• Median Peak Flow
• Median Time of Peak (Day of the Year)

The GoldSim Extrema element captures these annual extreme values. To display specific statistics (like a percentile or value at a percentile), these statistics need to be shown on a Dashboard, which requires a specific setup. I will show the process of screening out a certain group of results, so the result statistics reflect that screening.

Figure 1. GoldSim Model Dashboard: Annual Peak Flow Statistics