Probability Uncertainty
When these assumptions are violated there is an unknown amount of uncertainty introduced into the reported value of what the 100-year flood means in terms of rainfall intensity, or river flood depth. When all of the inputs are known the uncertainty can be measured in the form of a confidence interval. For example, one might say there is a 95% chance that the 100-year flood is greater than X, but less than Y. Without analyzing the statistical uncertainty of a given 100-year flood, scientists and engineers can decrease the uncertainty by using two practical rules. First, forecast an extreme event which is no more than double your observation years (e.g. you have 27 observed river measurements, so you can determine a 50-year event since 27×2=54, but not a 100-yr event). The second way to decrease the uncertainty of the extreme event is to forecast a value which is less than the maximum observed value (e.g. the maximum rainfall event on record is 5.25 inches/hour, so the 100-year storm event should be less than this).
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Famous quotes containing the words probability and/or uncertainty:
“Legends of prediction are common throughout the whole Household of Man. Gods speak, spirits speak, computers speak. Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality; for nothing comes to us that is not altered and falsified by our Senses. When the compass, the square, and the rule are untrue, all the calculations drawn from them, all the buildings erected by their measure, are of necessity also defective and out of plumb. The uncertainty of our senses renders uncertain everything that they produce.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)