ASSESSMENT OF FLOW DURATION CURVES AT DIFFERENT TIME SCALES

Halil İbrahim BURGAN¹

Flow Duration Curve (FDC) is one of the most fundamental tools that provide information for the design of hydropower projects particularly. Therefore, for practitioners who deal hydropower design, understanding the flow duration curve becomes extremely important. The time scales of FDC can be taken as either daily, ten daily, monthly, or annual. Decision makers decide for the required time scale of the FDC based on the purpose of hydropower project in consideration. In this study, FDCs were produced at daily, monthly and annual time scales from the observed mean streamflow data of a selected gauging station from the Meric-Ergene river basin in the European part of Turkey. The data used were obtained from State Hydraulic Works (DSI) of Turkey. Comparison of flow duration curves at different time scales shows that FDCs at shorter time intervals look more beneficial in getting more accurate quantiles needed for hydropower design. By considering the FDC of the gauging station, it is possible to produce power duration curves of the hydropower plant which is an important practical tool.

Keywords
Flow Duration Curve, Gauging Station, Hydropower, Meric-Ergene River Basin, Power Duration Curve,