• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.180-180
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• 2015

Weather radar has been widely used in measuring precipitation and discharge and predicting flood risks. The radar rainfall estimate has one of the essential problems in terms of uncertainty and accuracy. Previous study analyzed radar errors to reduce its uncertainty or to improve its accuracy. Furthermore, a recent analyzed the effect of radar error on rainfall-runoff using spatial error model (SEM). SEM appropriately reproduced radar error including spatial correlation. Since the SEM does not take the time dependence into account, its time variability was not properly investigated. Therefore, in the current study, we extend the SEM including time dependence as well as spatial dependence, named after Spatial-Temporal Error Model (STEM). Radar rainfall events generated with STEM were tested so that the peak runoff from the response of a basin could be investigated according to dependent error. The Nam River basin, South Korea, was employed to illustrate the effects of STEM on runoff peak flow.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.283-294
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• 2015

For urban flash flood simulation, we need the higher resolution radar rainfall than radar rainfall of KMA, which has 10 min time and 1km spatial resolution, because the area of subbasins is almost below $1km^2$. Moreover, we have to secure the high quantitative accuracy for considering the urban hydrological model that is sensitive to rainfall input. In this study, we developed the quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE), which has 250 m spatial resolution and high accuracy using KMA AWS and SK Planet stations with Mt. Gwangdeok radar data in Seoul area. As the results, the rainfall field using KMA AWS (QPE1) is showed high smoothing effect and the rainfall field using Mt. Gwangdeok radar is lower estimated than other rainfall fields. The rainfall field using KMA AWS and SK Planet (QPE2) and conditional merged rainfall field (QPE4) has high quantitative accuracy. In addition, they have small smoothed area and well displayed the spatial variation of rainfall distribution. In particular, the quantitative accuracy of QPE4 is slightly less than QPE2, but it has been simulated well the non-homogeneity of the spatial distribution of rainfall.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.15-15
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• 2011

The radar observation system in Japan is operated by two governmental groups: Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) of Japan. The JMA radar observation network is comprised of 20 C-band radars (with a wavelength of 5.6 cm), which cover most of the Japan Islands and observe rainfall intensity and distribution. And the MLIT's radar observation system is composed of 26 C-band radars throughout Japan. The observed radar echo from each radar unit is first modified, and then sent to the National Bureau of Synthesis Process within the MLIT. Through several steps for homogenizing observation accuracy, including distance and elevation correction, synthesized rainfall intensity maps for the entire nation of Japan are generated every 5 minutes. The MLIT has recently launched a new radar observation network system designed for flash flood observation and forecasting in small river basins within urban areas. It is called the X-band multi parameter radar network, and is distinguished by its dual polarimetric wave pulses of short length (3cm). Attenuation problems resulting from the short wave length of radar echo are strengthened by polarimetric wavelengths and very dense radar networks. Currently, the network is established within four areas. Each area is observed using 3-4 X-band radars with very fine resolution in spatial (250 m) and temporal (1 minute intervals). This study provides a series of utilization procedures for the new input data into a real-time forecasting system. First of all, the accuracy of the X-band radar observation was determined by comparing its results with the rainfall intensities as observed by ground gauge stations. It was also compared with conventional C-band radar observation. The rainfall information from the new radar network was then provided to a distributed hydrologic model to simulate river discharges. The simulated river discharges were evaluated again using the observed river discharge to estimate the applicability of the new observation network in the context of operations regarding flood forecasting. It was able to determine that the newly equipped X-band polarimetric radar network shows somewhat improved observation accuracy compared to conventional C-band radar observation. However, it has a tendency to underestimate the rainfall, and the accuracy is not always superior to that of the C-band radar. The accuracy evaluation of the X-band radar observation in this study was conducted using only limited rainfall events, and more cases should be examined for developing a broader understanding of the general behavior of the X-band radar and for improving observation accuracy.

• Atmosphere
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.365-378
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• 2014

The limits of S-band dual-polarization radars in Korea are not reflected on the recent weather forecasts of Korea Meteorological Administration and furthermore, they are only utilized for rainfall estimations and hydrometeor classification researches. Therefore, this study applied four merging methods [SA (Simple Average), WA (Weighted Average), SSE (Sum of Squared Error), TV (Time-varying mergence)] to the QPE (Quantitative Precipitation Estimation) model [called RAR (Radar-AWS Rainfall) calculation system] using single-polarization radars and S-band dual-polarization radar in order to improve the accuracy of the rainfall estimation of the RAR calculation system. As a result, the merging results of the WA and SSE methods, which are assigned different weights due to the accuracy of the individual model, performed better than the popular merging method, the SA (Simple Average) method. In particular, the results of TVWA (Time-Varying WA) and TVSSE (Time-Varying SSE), which were weighted differently due to the time-varying model error and standard deviation, were superior to the WA and SSE. Among of all the merging methods, the accuracy of the TVWA merging results showed the best performance. Therefore, merging the rainfalls from the RAR calculation system and S-band dual-polarization radar using the merging method proposed by this study enables to improve the accuracy of the quantitative rainfall estimation of the RAR calculation system. Moreover, this study is worthy of the fundamental research on the active utilization of dual-polarization radar for weather forecasts.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.146-146
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• 2022

A flash flood is one of the most hazardous natural events caused by heavy rainfall in a short period of time in mountainous areas with steep slopes. Early warning of flash flood is vital to minimize damage, but challenges remain in the enhancing accuracy and reliability of flash flood forecasts. The forecasters can easily determine whether flash flood is occurred using the flash flood guidance (FFG) comparing to rainfall volume of the same duration. In terms of this, the hydrological model that can consider the basin characteristics in real time can increase the accuracy of flash flood forecasting. Also, the predicted radar rainfall has a strength for short-lead time can be useful for flash flood forecasting. Therefore, using both hydrological models and radar rainfall forecasts can improve the accuracy of flash flood forecasts. In this study, FFG was applied to simulate some flash flood events in the Taehwa river basin by using of SURR model to consider soil moisture, and applied to the flash flood forecasting using predicted radar rainfall. The hydrometeorological data are gathered from 2011 to 2021. Furthermore, radar rainfall is forecasted up to 6-hours has been used to forecast flash flood during heavy rain in August 2021, Wulsan area. The accuracy of the predicted rainfall is evaluated and the correlation between observed and predicted rainfall is analyzed for quantitative evaluation. The results show that with a short lead time (1-3hr) the result of forecast flash flood events was very close to collected information, but with a larger lead time big difference was observed. The results obtained from this study are expected to use for set up the emergency planning to prevent the damage of flash flood.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.1329-1338
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• 2021

Rain radar provides high spatio-temporal radar rainfall that can be used as input data to short-term precipitation forecasting models. Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has developed a flash flood forecasting system that is providing flash flood forecasting based on short-term rainfall forecasts estimated by the radar rainfall. Accuracy of the radar rainfall as well as the short-term rainfall forecasts, however, can deteriorate when radar polarimetric variables have error. In this study, we develope real-time program that can correct the error inherent in the radar polarimetric variables. First, effect according to the correction of the error was verified using 363 rainfall events on non real-time. The accuracy (1-NE) of the radar rainfall was approximately 70% and correlation coefficient was higher than 0.8 after correcting the error on non real-time. The accuracy (1-NE) using the real-time program was also approximately 70% after correcting the error.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.42 no.12
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• pp.1039-1052
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• 2009

Radar measurement with high temporal and spatial resolutions can be a valuable source of data, especially in the areas where rain gauge installment is not practical. However, this kind of data brings with it many errors. The objective of this paper is to propose a method to evaluate statistically the quantitative and qualitative accuracy at different radar ranges, temporal intervals and raingage densities and use a bias adjustment technique to improve the quality of radar rainfall for the purpose of hydrological application. The method is tested with the data of 2 storm events collected at Jindo (S band) and Kwanak (C band) radar stations. The obtained results show that the accuracy of radar rainfall estimation increases when time interval rises. Radar data at the shorter range seems to be more accurate than the further one, especially for C-band radar. Using the Monte Carlo simulation experiment, we find out that the sampling error of the bias between radar and gauge rainfall reduces nonlinearly with increasing raingage density. The accuracy can be improved considerably if the real-time bias adjustment is applied, making adjusted radar rainfall to be adequately good to apply for hydrological application.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.43 no.8
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• pp.695-707
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• 2010

The frequency and size of typhoon and local severe rainfall are increasing due to the climate change and the damage also increasing from typhoon and severe rainfall. The flood forecasting and warning system to reduce the damage from typhoon and severe rainfall needs forecasted rainfall using radar data and short-term rainfall forecasting model. For this reason, this study examined the applicability of short-term rainfall forecast using translation model with weather radar data to point out that the utilization of flood forecasting in Korea. This study estimated the radar rainfall using Least-square fitting method and estimated rainfall was used as initial field of translation model. The translation model have verified accuracy of forecasted radar rainfall through the comparison of forecasted radar rainfall and observed rainfall quantitatively and qualitatively. Almost case studies showed that accuracy is over 0.6 within 4 hours leading time and mean of correlation coefficient is over 0.5 within 1 hours leading time in Kwanak and Jindo radar site. And, as the increasing the leading time, the forecast accuracy of precipitation decreased. The results of the calculated Mean Area Precipitation (MAP) showed forecast rainfall tend to be underestimated than observed rainfall but the correlation coefficient more than 0.5. Therefore it showed that translation model could be accurately predicted the rainfall relatively. The present results indicate that possibility of translation model application of Korea just within 2 hours leading forecasted rainfall.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.27-38
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• 2021

Recently, many studies have been conducted to use the radar rainfall in hydrology. However, in the case of weather radar, the beam is blocked due to the limitation of the observation such as mountain effect, which causes underestimation of the radar rainfall. In this study, the radar rainfall was estimated using the Hybrid Sacn Reflectivity (HSR) technique for hydrological use of weather radar and the runoff analysis was performed using the GRM model which is a distributed rainfall-runoff model. As a result of performing the radar rainfall correction and runoff simulation for 5 rainfall events, the accuracy of the dual-polarization radar rainfall using the HSR technique (Q_H_KDP) was the highest with an error within 15% of the ground rainfall. In addition, the result of runoff simulation using Q_H_KDP also showed an accuracy of R2 of 0.9 or more, NRMSE of 1.5 or less and NSE of 0.5 or more. From this study, we examined the application of the dual-polarization radar and this results can be useful for studies related to the hydrological application of dual-polarization radar rainfall in the future.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.257-268
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• 2015

The objective of this study is to assess the dual-polarization radar for flood forecasting. First, radar rainfall has temporal and spatial errors, so estimated radar rainfall was compared with ground observation rainfall to assess accuracy improvement, especially, considering the radar range of observation and increase of the rainfall intensity. The results of this study showed that the error for estimated dual-polarization radar rainfall was less than single-polarization radar rainfall. And in this study, dual-polarization radar rainfall for flood forecasting was assessed using MAP (Mean Areal Precipitation) and SURR (Sejong University Rainfall Runoff) model in Namkang dam watershed. The results of MAP are more accurate using dual-polarization radar. And the results of runoff using dual-polarization radar rainfall showed that peak flow error was reduced approximately 12~63%, runoff volumes error was reduced by approximately 30~42%, and also the root mean square error decreased compared to the result of runoff using single-polarization radar rainfall. The results revealed that dual-polarization radar will contribute to improving the accuracy of the flood forecasting.