An efficient causative event-based approach for deriving the annual flood frequency distribution.

Highlights: [•] An efficient and robust method for the estimation of the annual flood frequency distribution is developed. [•] It combines the advantages of the continuous simulation and event-based methods, i.e., accuracy and efficiency. [•] The joint probability nature of the rainfall-runoff process is taken into account and the AEP neutrality assumption is avoided. [•] It approach uses the causative events of the streamflows to derive the annual flood distribution. [•] It reduces computational demand compared with a long continuous simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]