• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.627-636
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• 2020

Debris flow disasters primarily occur in mountainous terrains far from cities. As such, they have been underestimated to cause relatively less damage compared with other natural disasters. However, owing to urbanization, several residential areas and major facilities have been built in mountainous regions, and the frequency of debris flow disasters is steadily increasing owing to the increase in rainfall with environmental and climate changes. Thus, the risk of debris flow is on the rise. However, only a few studies have explored the characteristics of flooding and reduction measures for debris flow in areas designated as steep slopes. In this regard, it is necessary to conduct research on securing independent disaster prevention technology, suitable for the environment in South Korea and reflective of the topographical characteristics thereof, and update and improve disaster prevention information. Accordingly, this study aimed to calculate the amount of debris flow, depending on disaster prevention performance targets for regions designated as steep slopes in South Korea, and develop an independent model to not only evaluate the impact of debris flow but also identify debris barriers that are optimal for mitigating damage. To validate the reliability of the two-dimensional debris flow model developed for the evaluation of debris barriers, the model's performance was compared with that of the hydraulic model. Furthermore, a 2-D debris model was constructed in consideration of the regional characteristics around the steep slopes to analyze the flow characteristics of the debris that directly reaches the damaged area. The flow characteristics of the debris delivered downstream were further analyzed, depending on the specifications (height) and installation locations of the debris barriers employed to reduce the damage. The experimental results showed that the reliability of the developed model is satisfactory; further, this study confirmed significant performance degradation of debris barriers in areas where the barriers were installed at a slope of 20° or more, which is the slope at which debris flows occur.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.627-635
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• 2019

In Korea, snow damage has been happened in the region with no snowfalls in history. Also, casual damage was caused by heavy snow. Therefore, policy about the Natural Disaster Reduction Comprehensive Plan has been changed to include the mitigation measures of snow damage. However, since heavy snow damage was not frequent, studies on snowfall have not been conducted in different points. The characteristics of snow data commonly are not same to the rainfall data. For example, some parts of the southern coastal areas are snowless during the year, so there is often no values or zero values among the annual maximum daily snow accumulation. The characteristics of this type of data is similar to the censored data. Indeed, Busan observation sites have more than 36% of no data or zero data. Despite of the different characteristics, the frequency analysis for snow data has been implemented according to the procedures for rainfall data. The frequency analysis could be implemented in both way to include the zero data or exclude the zero data. The fitness of both results would not be high enough to represent the real data shape. Therefore, in this study, a methodology for selecting a probability density function was suggested considering the characteristics of snow data in Korea. A method to select probability density function using conditional joint probability distribution was proposed. As a result, fitness from the proposed method was higher than the conventional methods. This shows that the conventional methods (includes 0 or excludes 0) overestimated snow depth. The results of this study can affect the design standards of buildings and also contribute to the establishment of measures to reduce snow damage.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.353-362
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to suggest a structure plan for improving the utilization of inactive storage in the dam for overcoming the drought. Inactive storage in the dam is composed of the emergency storage and dead storage. The emergency storage can be used for the case of emergency such as drought. But, in general, the dead storage for sedimentation is not used even for the emergency. Therefore, this study considers the part of dead storage that the sedimentation is not progressed yet can be used during the severe drought period and is called "drought storage in a dam". The accurate Sediment Level(SL) analysis for the computation of the drought storage should be performed and so the present and future SL in the dam reservoir is estimated using SED-2D linked with RMA-2 model of SMS. After the consideration of additionally available storage capacity based on the estimated SL, the drought storage is finally determined. Present data based on historical data, future predicted future climate factors by Representative Concentrarion Pathways(RCP) 8.5 scenario. Then, using the TANK model, dam inflows were determined, and future period such as SL and drought storage were suggested. As the results, we have found that the available drought storage will be reduced in the future when we compare the present drought storage with the future one. This is due to a increase variability of climate change. Therefore, we should take the necessary study for the increase of available drought storage in the future.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.49-60
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• 2021

We examined the flow characteristics by direct runoff and base flow in a headwater stream during observed 59 rainfall events of flood season (June~September) from 2017 to 2020 yrs. Total precipitation ranged from 5.0 to 400.8 mm, total runoff ranged from 0.1 to 176.5 mm, and runoff ratio ranged from 0.1 to 242.9% during the rainfall events. From hydrograph separation, flow duration in base flow (139.3 days) was tended to be longer than direct runoff (78.3 days), while the contribution of direct runoff in total runoff (54.2%) was greater than base flow (45.8%). The total amount and peak flow of direct runoff and base flow had the highest correlation (p<0.05) with total precipitation and duration of rain among rainfall and soil moisture conditions. Dominant rainfall events for the total amount and peak flow of base flow were generated under 5.0~200.4 and 10.5~110.5 mm in total precipitation. However, when direct runoff occurred as dominant rainfall events, total amount and peak flow were increased by 267.4~400.8 and 169.0~400.8 mm in total precipitation. Therefore, the unique aspects of our study design permitted us to draw inferences about flow characteristic analysis with the contribution of base flow and/or direct runoff in the total runoff in a headwater stream. Furthermore, it will be useful for the long-term strategy of effective water management for integrated surface-groundwater in the forested headwater stream.