Abstract

RAYNAL, José A.. Probability Weighted Moments Estimators for the Parameters of the General Extreme Value Distribution. Inf. tecnol. [online]. 2005, vol.16, n.1, pp.75-82. ISSN 0718-0764.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-07642005000100011.

An alternative method for estimating the parameters of the general extreme value (GEV) probability distribution function, using the method of probability weighted moments, is compared with existing methods, to analyze maximum annual floods. The proposed method shows better modeling flexibility than the existing methods, and has been applied to a large number of maximum annual floods samples with no observed difficulty. The paper contains numerical examples for the estimation of parameters using the methods cited. The results produced by both methods are practically the same, both in the parameter estimation phase for the GEV distribution, as well as in the evaluation of the design events. Regarding statistical characteristics, the proposed methodology is much better than the existing one, as it has been shown through distribution sampling experiments.

Keywords : probability weighted moments; parameter estimators; extreme value distribution; frequency analysis.