Birth‐Death Models for differential persistence

Birth‐death models can generate synthetic flow sequences that demonstrate differential persistence, i.e., sequences in which low flows show more persistence than high flows do. A simple phenomenological model helps justify the assumption of differential persistence. The use of a birth‐death model, together with a set of modeling precepts, shows that differential persistence is a phenomenon of considerable descriptive importance but at least in some planning situations does not carry corresponding prescriptive importance.