Streamflow, as a natural phenomenon, is continuous in time and so are the
meteorological variables which influence its variability. In practice, it can
be of interest to forecast the whole flow curve instead of points (daily or
hourly). To this end, this paper introduces the functional linear models and
adapts it to hydrological forecasting. More precisely, functional linear models
are regression models based on curves instead of single values. They allow to
consider the whole process instead of a limited number of time points or
features. We apply these models to analyse the flow volume and the whole
streamflow curve during a given period by using precipitations curves. The
functional model is shown to lead to encouraging results. The potential of
functional linear models to detect special features that would have been hard
to see otherwise is pointed out. The functional model is also compared to the
artificial neural network approach and the advantages and disadvantages of both
models are discussed. Finally, future research directions involving the
functional model in hydrology are presented.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figure