Identifying regime switches through Bayesian wavelet estimation: evidence from flood detection in the Taquari River Valley

Two-component mixture models have proved to be a powerful tool for modeling heterogeneity in several cluster analysis contexts. However, most methods based on these models assume a constant behavior for the mixture weights, which can be restrictive and unsuitable for some applications. In this paper, we relax this assumption and allow the mixture weights to vary according to the index (e.g., time) to make the model more adaptive to a broader range of data sets. We propose an efficient MCMC algorithm to jointly estimate both component parameters and dynamic weights from their posterior samples. We evaluate the method's performance by running Monte Carlo simulation studies under different scenarios for the dynamic weights. In addition, we apply the algorithm to a time series that records the level reached by a river in southern Brazil. The Taquari River is a water body whose frequent flood inundations have caused various damage to riverside communities. Implementing a dynamic mixture model allows us to properly describe the flood regimes for the areas most affected by these phenomena.