Fractal Analysis of River Discharge Time Series: Case Study on Kor River

Meteorological and hydrological time series are examples of natural phenomena which can be
analyzed via fractal geometry as a powerful statistical method. Fractal object has a structure that is
repeated in different time scales. In this paper primary concepts of fractal geometry regarding time
series are described and four classic methods for fractal dimension calculation are mentioned. Then
average daily discharge of Kor River, a large river in Iran, for duration of 38 years is investigated
using the correlation dimension estimation method. A dimension of 1.29 is obtained for the time series
of this river. The results show that in different time scales there are a relative correlation between
values of river discharge variation and these values are not independent. The results also imply that for
time series larger than 3 to 4 years, fractal features exist in the time series and for smaller time series it
is difficult to detect fractal feature in time series.