FORUM
Prediction versus Understanding
„The 2006 Ven Te Chow Lecture…
David R. Dawdy
3055 23rd Ave., San Francisco, CA 94132.
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The times they are a-changin’. Global warming is upon us. Engi-
neering is about prediction. However, in water resources engi-
neering, many of the prediction tools soon may not be valid. They
may not predict correctly under the new conditions. It may not
happen in my lifetime but it certainly will in many of yours. So
what can we do about it? Let me give a little of my personal
history to try to help answer the question I just raised.
From 1956 to 1958 I worked with Manuel Benson in develop-
ing the regression method for predicting flood frequencies. The
method uses historical streamflow records to predict flood fre-
quencies at ungauged basins in space. That is the method used by
the USGS and elsewhere today. In 1958, I worked for the summer
with Walter Langbein. Walter told me that the Ground Water staff
wanted to do the prediction of the low flows for the Potomac
River for use in water supply planning by the District of Colum-
bia. The Surface Water staff predicted the flows by use of a re-
gression model. Their method was black box. The Ground Water
group wanted to add understanding to the prediction to make it
better. After all, low flows are made up from water draining from
aquifers and the equations for those flows were well known.
Walter said this happened every 5 years or so, and no one ever
came up with a better predictor than the black box regression
model. So, understanding does not necessarily lead to better pre-
diction. Prediction is an engineering problem. Understanding, in
general, is a scientific problem.
Some years back, Peter Eagleson chaired an NRC Committee,
Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences, which produced a pub-
lication titled Opportunities in the Hydrologic Sciences 共WSTB
1991兲. That report called for developing hydrology as a geo-
science. It outlined several steps toward achieving that goal.
However, somehow there was no immediate follow through. Hy-
drology grew out of engineering and was mainly concerned with
prediction. What that committee recommended was that the hy-
drologic community should begin to stress the science behind
hydrology and concentrate more on understanding the water cycle
as a whole. Rather than follow the lead of the practical problems
of the several water agencies, the hydrologic community should
define what the present problems were and future problems were
to be and should cooperate to attack those problems as a scientific
challenge. One of the problems they touched on was the effect of
greenhouse gases on global hydrology.
There was a large background of history leading up to the
Committee and its conclusions. I will give one example from my
direct experience. The USGS developed the statistical approach to
the prediction of flood frequencies as represented by the regional
共spatial兲 quantile analysis of annual flood frequencies mentioned
earlier. The Stanford watershed model 共1964兲, and subsequently
other rainfall-runoff models, developed the deterministic ap-
proach based on semiempirical physical equations. It described
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flow hydrographs and peak flows on the time scales of individual
rainfall-runoff events. This in contrast to the statistical approach,
which was spatial. The two approaches were developed to solve
practical engineering problems. The regional statistical analysis of
annual flood frequencies was designed to predict floods of a given
return period for highway, bridge, and spillway design at un-
gauged locations, and rainfall-runoff models were developed for
planning and project design. The dichotomy in the two ap-
proaches to hydrologic analyses continues until today in hydro-
logic research, education, and practice.
It was also recognized in the early 1960s that the two ap-
proaches must be closely connected because physical rainfall-
runoff mechanisms generating floods were the basis for the flood
values used in the statistical analysis. For example, federal agen-
cies other than the USGS have often used deterministic rainfall-
runoff analyses to determine flood frequencies. An intercompari-
son of use of the various models for the prediction of flood
frequencies was undertaken, and it was shown that the USGS
model predicted with less bias and less variance than any of the
other models. Thus, once again, better understanding did not lead
to better prediction. However, a general theoretical framework for
connecting the two, i.e., how the physics of the system could be
used to predict spatial statistical parameters in quantile analysis
was not known, and tools had not been developed to address this
fundamental hydrologic question. The parameters used in the re-
gression models were surrogates for the physics underpinning the
prediction. However, it was not recognized at the time that the
problem of connecting the two approaches was a 共nonlinear兲 geo-
physical problem belonging to hydrological sciences rather than a
practical engineering problem belonging to hydrologic engineer-
ing and that it required the development of new ideas and new
tools.
Statistical analysis has not been confined to regression analy-
sis. The Harvard Group 共Fiering 1964兲 introduced stochastic
simulation, and a plethora of papers followed purporting to dem-
onstrate how stochastic simulation of streamflows could aid in
project design. Mandlebrot and Wallis 共1968兲 introduced their
model of the Hurst effect in 1968. This introduced self-similarity
共which produces power laws or scaling兲 and long memory pro-
cesses into the hydrologic tool chest. Attempts to model the Hurst
effect with different models followed, culminating in the intro-
duction of the broken-line model 共Rodriguez-Iturbe et al. 1972兲.
All these models were concerned with time series; whereas, ear-
lier regression models were concerned with spatial relationships,
i.e., they could be used to predict floods of given frequencies at a
point or points in space within a “homogeneous region.” The
meaning of long memory 共a power law correlation function which
has infinite memory in most models of the Hurst effect兲 was never
explained, although it was demonstrated that it applied to the
modeling of streams in a karst area 共Garcia et al. 1972兲.
The study of long memory processes and of self-similar
processes died down without any physical understanding or ex-
 planation of the theory behind the processes and their true impli-
cation for understanding hydrology. Nevertheless, the fundamen-
tal question was raised in the open literature 共Klemes 1974兲. In
the concluding remarks to my Kisiel Lecture at the University of
Arizona 共Dawdy 1995兲, I stated, “Some one is going to…end up
with an understanding of the relation of the physical basis for
statistical variability in time and space.” I still believe that and
will illustrate this key issue below.
I mentioned earlier that I was research assistant to Manuel
Benson in the development of the USGS flood frequency meth-
ods. The USGS applied those models on a state-by-state basis. I
always thought there was more information in those reports than
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was utilized. Each report used data outside its immediate region
to determine their equations, but there was no real attempt to
coordinate the results. Could there be a universal equation cover-
ing the United States? How could the information in those reports
be used other than to develop prediction equations region by re-
gion? I collected all the reports as they came out, but I never
managed to solve my self-defined puzzle.
Vijay Gupta was a student in some of my classes at Colorado
State University, and I influenced him to go to the University of
Arizona to study under Chester Kisiel. I served on his M.S. thesis
and Ph.D. dissertation committees and have followed his career
through the years. Whenever I visited Vijay at Arizona or, later, at
the University of Mississippi and the University of Colorado, he
filled me in on his work, which turned more to the understanding
of the influence of basin morphology on the hydrology of the
basin. Finally one day when Vijay was explaining his thinking on
self-similarity of floods 共based in power laws or scaling兲 in joint
collaboration with a mathematician, Ed Waymire 共Gupta and
Waymire 1990兲, I realized that this may be the solution to my
puzzle. Perhaps the information latent in the USGS flood fre-
quency relations could be revealed through developing a scaling
theory. Those data could be used to test some of the scaling hy-
potheses. The result was a series of papers showing a signature of
power laws in the USGS flood frequency analyses and an attempt
to give a crude physical interpretation to the scaling results
共Dawdy and Gupta 1992; Gupta et al. 1994; Gupta and Dawdy
1995兲. However, it was soon realized that a physical understand-
ing of statistical scaling of floods, strictly applied, was valid only
for nested basins, that is, basins with subbasins nested within, and
time scales of individual rainfall-runoff events 共Gupta et al.
1996兲. Although the USGS regions contained similar basins, they
were not nested basins, and the time scale was annual not event-
based. The observational evidence for power laws in quantile re-
gression analysis of annual floods in nested basins for regional or
spatial analysis of annual flood frequencies is a recent develop-
ment, because only two papers have been published on it: one for
the Walnut Gulch basin, Ariz. 共Goodrich et al. 1997兲 and another
for the Goodwin Creek basin, Miss. 共Ogden and Dawdy 2003兲.
The USDA has operated these two basins as experimental facili-
ties for many years, and they are quite unique as natural labora-
tories in terms of high density of rainfall and streamflow data. The
Walnut Gulch basin is in the semiarid southwest United States,
and the Goodwin Creek is in the humid southeast United States.
Ogden and Dawdy 共2003兲 also conducted the first event-based
analysis of spatial flood statistics for the Goodwin Creek basin
and observed a presence of power laws. Surprisingly, they found
that the power law parameters vary from one event to the next.
Following on this work, Furey and Gupta 共2005兲 have tested the
hypothesis that the observed variability in the power law param-
eters can be attributed to temporal variability in effective rainfall
intensity and duration among events
2 / JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGIC ENGINEERING © ASCE / JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2007
J. Hydrol. Eng. 2007.12:1-3.
Walnut Gulch data analysis of Goodrich et al. 共1997兲 exhibits
a break in the flood frequency power law relations called simple
scaling 共Gupta and Waymire 1998兲. The break occurred at an area
of about a quarter of a square mile. Above the break point, the
slopes of the flood frequency relations are close to a half. A physi-
cal basis of this slope value is related to the geometry and dy-
namics of flow in a network 共Mantilla et al. 2006兲. Gupta and
Waymire 共1998兲 offered a physical explanation of similar values
of power law slopes for two regions of New Mexico that were
observed in the USGS annual flood frequency analysis 共Gupta
and Dawdy 1995兲. Goodrich et al. 共1997兲 explained their break as
the result of the influence of the size of storm cells in their basin.
For basins smaller than the cell size, the flood frequencies in-
creased almost directly with area. Ogden and Dawdy showed that
the difference from a direct relation was related to the actual path
of the storm and whether, in general, the storm hit directly over
the basin or the storm center was outside the basin. If every storm
were centered on a basin, seemingly, the flood frequencies should
vary directly with area. Furey and Gupta 共2005兲 showed that tem-
poral varibility was the cause, which is similar to Ogden and
Dawdy’s 共2003兲 empirical conclusion. Incidentally, the Walnut
Gulch data exhibit simple scaling both before and after the break
in the flood frequency relations.
An important conclusion concerning understanding aiding in
prediction has to do with climate change as a result of global
warming. By understanding how basins operate physically and
how the physics is connected to the spatial statistical variability in
floods, we may have a leg up on the influences of climate change
and other impacts due to natural and human influences. Will glo-
bal warming change the structure of rainfall intensity and dura-
tion? What will that change be? If not, there will continue to be a
break at about a quarter of a square mile in the Walnut Gulch
basin. As global warming changes the frequency of thunderstorms
or total precipitation, the return period of the floods at the break
point may change, but the basic structure of the flood frequency
power law relations should remain intact. Similar conclusions
may be reached elsewhere. Scaling properties are related to the
physics of the basin and should be invariant.
In conclusion, scaling theory at this time is leading to under-
standing, a long-standing need in hydrology. It is contributing to
the scientific understanding of hydrology. However, with global
warming introducing nonstationarity into hydrology, the tradi-
tional tools of prediction will no longer be valid. They depend on
the future repeating the past. The future will not. Perhaps scaling
theory or other scientific explanations of hydrology can aid in
hydrologic prediction in our present hydrologic universe, which is
becoming nonstationary. This would be a case where understand-
ing may, in fact, aid in prediction. Such theories may be necessary
in our future hydrology.
References
Dawdy, D. R. 共1995兲. “Hurst, scaling, and the meaning of hydrology.”
Fourteenth Chester C. Kisiel Memorial Lecture, Univ. of Arizona,
Tucson, Ariz.
Dawdy, D. R., and Gupta, V. K. 共1992兲. “Regional flood frequency rela-
tions as evidence of scaling invariance.” Paper presented at Fall Con-
ference of Amer. Geophys. Union, AGU, Washington, D.C.
Fiering, M. B. 共1964兲. “Multivariate techniques for synthetic hydrology.”
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Furey, P., and Gupta, V. 共2005兲. “Effects of excess rainfall on the tempo-
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1240–1253.
 Garcia, L. E., Dawdy, D. R., and Mejia, J. M. 共1972兲. “Long memory
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Gupta, V. K., Mesa, O. J., and Dawdy, D. 共1994兲. “Multiscaling theory of
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Water Science and Technology Board 共WSTB兲 Committee on Opportu-
nities in the Hydrologic Sciences. 共1991兲. Opportunities in the hydro-
logic sciences, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.