Estimating the magnitude and frequency of floods at ungaged locations on urban streams in Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina, using data through the 2022 water year

Daniel M. Wagner; David E. Ladd

doi:10.3133/sir20255104

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Estimating the magnitude and frequency of floods at ungaged locations on urban streams in Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina, using data through the 2022 water year

Daniel M. Wagner·David E. Ladd

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Abstract

In 2024, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Tennessee Department of Transportation, updated the methods for predicting the magnitude and frequency of floods at ungaged locations on streams in urban areas in Tennessee. The study area included 136 streamgages in urban areas in Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina that had at least 10 percent developed imperviousness in their basins as indicated by data from the 2011 National Land Cover Database. Regression equations were developed to predict streamflows corresponding to the 50-, 20-, 10-, 4-, 2-, 1-, 0.5-, and 0.2-percent annual exceedance probabilities (AEPs) and were incorporated into the StreamStats application. In generalized least-squares regression, the base-10 logarithm of drainage area, the percentages of the streamgage basins in developed land use, and the percentages of the streamgage basins in the Piedmont and Ridge and Valley Level 3 ecoregions were statistically significant in explaining the variability in annual peak streamflows in the study area. Drainage areas ranged from 0.164 to 93.4 square miles, the percentage of the streamgage basins in developed land use ranged from 26 to 100 percent, and the percentage of the streamgage basins in Piedmont and Ridge and Valley Level 3 ecoregions ranged from 0 to 100 percent. Pseudo R-squared values for the regression equations ranged from 0.86, or 86 percent, for the 50- and 20-percent AEPs (2- and 5-year floods) to 0.71, or 71 percent, for the 0.2-percent AEP (500-year flood). The average variance of prediction (in log base-10 units) ranged from 0.023 for the 20- and 10-percent AEPs to 0.05 for the 0.2-percent AEP. The average variance of prediction can be reported as a percentage of the predicted value, known as the standard error of prediction, which ranged from 35.8 percent for the 20-percent AEP (5-year flood) to 55.4 percent for the 0.2-percent AEP (500-year flood). Methods are presented for estimating annual peak streamflows for gaged locations, ungaged locations on gaged streams, and locations on ungaged streams.

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Source-reported bounding extent: 31.285937937939266° to 36.51223155288169° latitude; -91.20372096539845° to -77.72376308003552° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

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Daniel M. Wagner, David E. Ladd. 2026-02-05. Estimating the magnitude and frequency of floods at ungaged locations on urban streams in Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina, using data through the 2022 water year. https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20255104

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