• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.516-516
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• 2022

Agricultural reservoirs are critical water resources structures to ensure continuous water supplies for rice cultivation in Korea. Climate change has increased the risk of reservoir failure by exacerbating discrepancies in upstream runoff generation, downstream irrigation water demands, and evaporation losses. In this study, the variations in water balance components of 400 major reservoirs during 1973-2017 were examined to identify the reservoirs with reliable storage capacities and resilience. A conceptual lumped hydrological model was used to transform the incident rainfall into the inflows entering the reservoirs and the paddy water balance model was used to estimate the irrigation water demand. Historical climate data analysis showed a sharp warming gradient during the last 45 years that was particularly evident in the central and southern regions of the country, which were also the main agricultural areas with high reservoir density. We noted a country-wide progressive increase in average annual cumulative rainfall, but the forcing mechanism of the rainfall increment and its spatial-temporal trends were not fully understood. Climate warming resulted in a significant increase in irrigation water demand, while heavy rains increased runoff generation in the reservoir watersheds. Most reservoirs had reliable storage capacities to meet the demands of a 10-year return frequency drought but the resilience of reservoirs gradually declined over time. This suggests that the recovery time of reservoirs from the failure state had increased which also signifies that the duration of the dry season has been prolonged while the wet season has become shorter and/or more intense. The watershed-irrigated area ratio (W-I_ratio) was critical and the results showed that a slight disruption in reservoir water balance under the influence of future climate change would seriously compromise the performance of reservoirs with W-I_ratio< 5.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.49-66
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• 2024

Extreme rainfall will become intense due to climate change, increasing inundation risk to agricultural land. Hydrological and hydraulic simulations for the entire watershed were conducted to analyze the impact of climate change. Rainfall data was collected based on past weather observation and SSP (Shared Socio-economic Pathway)5-8.5 climate change scenarios. Simulation for flood volume, reservoir operation, river level, and inundation of agricultural land was conducted through K-HAS (KRC Hydraulics & Hydrology Analysis System) and HEC-RAS (Hydrologic Engineering Center - River Analysis System). Various scenarios were selected, encompassing different periods of rainfall data, including the observed period (1973-2022), near-term future (2021-2050), mid-term future (2051-2080), and long-term future (2081-2100), in addition to probabilistic precipitation events with return periods of 20 years and 100 years. The inundation area of the Aho-Buin district was visualized through GIS (Geographic Information System) based on the results of the flooding analysis. The probabilistic precipitation of climate change scenarios was calculated higher than that of past observations, which affected the increase in reservoir inflow, river level, inundation time, and inundation area. The inundation area and inundation time were higher in the 100-year frequency. Inundation risk was high in the order of long-term future, near-term future, mid-term future, and observed period. It was also shown that the Aho and Buin districts were vulnerable to inundation. These results are expected to be used as fundamental data for assessing the risk of flooding for agricultural land and downstream watersheds under climate change, guiding drainage improvement projects, and making flood risk maps.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.43-50
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• 2002

Accurate quantitative forecasting of rainfall for basins with a short response time is essential to predict streamflow and flash floods. Previously, neural networks were used to develop a Quantitative Precipitation Forecasting (QPF) model that highly improved forecasting skill at specific locations in Pennsylvania, using both Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) output and rainfall and radiosonde data. The objective of this study was to improve an existing artificial neural network model and incorporate the evolving structure and frequency of intense weather systems in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States for improved flood forecasting. Besides using radiosonde and rainfall data, the model also used the satellite-derived characteristics of storm systems such as tropical cyclones, mesoscale convective complex systems and convective cloud clusters as input. The convective classification and tracking system (CCATS) was used to identify and quantify storm properties such as life time, area, eccentricity, and track. As in standard expert prediction systems, the fundamental structure of the neural network model was learned from the hydroclimatology of the relationships between weather system, rainfall production and streamflow response in the study area. The new Quantitative Flood Forecasting (QFF) model was applied to predict streamflow peaks with lead-times of 18 and 24 hours over a five year period in 4 watersheds on the leeward side of the Appalachian mountains in the mid-Atlantic region. Threat scores consistently above .6 and close to 0.8 ∼ 0.9 were obtained fur 18 hour lead-time forecasts, and skill scores of at least 4％ and up to 6％ were attained for the 24 hour lead-time forecasts. This work demonstrates that multisensor data cast into an expert information system such as neural networks, if built upon scientific understanding of regional hydrometeorology, can lead to significant gains in the forecast skill of extreme rainfall and associated floods. In particular, this study validates our hypothesis that accurate and extended flood forecast lead-times can be attained by taking into consideration the synoptic evolution of atmospheric conditions extracted from the analysis of large-area remotely sensed imagery While physically-based numerical weather prediction and river routing models cannot accurately depict complex natural non-linear processes, and thus have difficulty in simulating extreme events such as heavy rainfall and floods, data-driven approaches should be viewed as a strong alternative in operational hydrology. This is especially more pertinent at a time when the diversity of sensors in satellites and ground-based operational weather monitoring systems provide large volumes of data on a real-time basis.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.47-58
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• 2013

Recently, an increase in the occurrence of sudden local flooding of great volume and short duration due to global climate changes has occasioned the significant danger and loss of life and property in Korea as well as most parts of the world. Such a local flood that usually occurs as the result of intense rainfall over small regions rises quite quickly with little or no advance warning time to prevent flood damage. To prevent the local flood damage, it is important to quickly predict the flood severity for flood events exceeding a threshold discharge that may cause the flood damage for inland areas. The aim of this study is to develop the NFI (New Flood Index) measuring the severity of floods in small ungauged catchments for use in local flood predictions by the regression analysis between the NFI and rainfall patterns. Flood runoff hydrographs are generated from a rainfall-runoff model using the annual maximum rainfall series of long-term observations for the two study catchments. The flood events above a threshold assumed as the 2-year return period discharge are targeted to estimate the NFI obtained by the geometric mean of the three relative severity factors, such as the flood magnitude ratio, the rising curve gradient, and the flooding duration time. The regression results show that the 3-hour maximum rainfall depths have the highest relationships with the NFI. It is expected that the best-fit regression equation between the NFI and rainfall characteristics can provide the basic database of the preliminary information for predicting the local flood severity in small ungauged catchments.

• Water Engineering Research
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.123-134
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• 2002

A developed Quantitative Flood Forecasting (QFF) model was applied to the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The model incorporated the evolving structure and frequency of intense weather systems of the study area for improved flood forecasting. Besides using radiosonde and rainfall data, the model also used the satellite-derived characteristics of storm systems such as tropical cyclones, mesoscale convective complex systems and convective cloud clusters associated with synoptic atmospheric conditions as Input. Here, we present results from the application of the Quantitative Flood Forecasting (QFF) model in 2 small watersheds along the leeward side of the Appalachian Mountains in the mid-Atlantic region. Threat scores consistently above 0.6 and close to 0.8 ∼ 0.9 were obtained fur 18 hour lead-time forecasts, and skill scores of at least 40% and up to 55 % were obtained.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.341-348
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• 2018

Landslides can be caused by localized intense rainfall. The loss of human lives and damage to property from landslides is increasing. However, little information exists on the movement and flow of sediment material at the time of rapid landslides. In this study, a field survey was conducted of landslides that occurred in 2013 in the Hadari area of Yeoju city in Korea. This was followed by numerical analysis. The purpose is to analyze the characteristics of a consequent debris flow and its movement at the time of failure. The results of the field survey and numerical analysis are consistent with each other. The maximum velocity of the debris flow was ~9.335 m/s and the maximum sediment thickness ~4.674 m. The latter is similar to the traces of debris flow observed in the field.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.181-192
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• 2010

Water erosion is progressing in the Loess Plateau, especially in gullies, and the sediment runoff to the Yellow River amounts to 975 million tons every year. Natural factors for water erosion include climate, soil, geological feature, terrain and vegetation. Many development projects due to the increasing population reduced the forest coverage ratio to 10%, and 200 million people in the downstream area are suffering from the damage during intense rainfall. Accordingly, the Chinese government is continuously trying to efficiently prevent the erosion by establishing measures for water erosion, including fish-scale pits, terrace technique, and check dams.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.737-746
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• 2019

Most landslides in the country are shallow failures triggered by intense rainfall. Many researchers have revealed the possibility of predicting shallow failure through the volumetric water content (VWC). This study examined how to determine shallow failure using the gradient characteristics of the volumetric water content. For this, flume experiments were conducted using weathered granite soil. To confirm the saturation state of the surface layer under a rainfall intensity of 30 and 50mm/hr, VWC sensors were installed at depths of 10 and 20 cm on the upper, middle and lower slope. The test results showed that a shallow failure determination using VWC could be applied limitedly according to the slope degree. In addition, the effective cumulative rainfall due to the rainfall infiltration velocity is considered the main factor for the failure time. The failure prediction using the gradient of the VWC depends on the installation location and depth of the sensor. According to the experimental data, the measured value at 20 cm below the slope was most effective. Therefore, an analysis method of VWC and the method of selecting the installation location confirmed through this study can provide important data for presenting the measurement criteria using VWC in the future.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.56 no.12
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• pp.955-967
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• 2023

Climate change is expected to amplify the future flooding risks in rural areas which could have devastating implications for the sustainability of the agricultural sector and food security in South Korea. In this study, spatially disaggregated and statistically bias-corrected outputs from three global circulation models (GCMs) archived in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phases 5 and 6 (CMIP5 and 6) were used to project the future climate by 2100 under medium and extreme scenarios. A hydrological model was developed to simulate the flood phenomena at the Shindae experimental site located in the Chungcheongbuk Province, South Korea. Hourly rainfall, inundation depth, and discharge data collected during the two extreme events that occurred in 2021 and 2022 were used to calibrate and validate the hydrological model. Probability analysis of extreme rainfall data suggested a higher likelihood of intense and unprecedented extreme rainfall events, which would be particularly notable during 2051-2100. Consequently, the flooded area under an inundation depth of >700 mm increased by 13-36%, 54-74%, and 71-90% during 2015-2030, 2031-2050, and 2051-2100, respectively. Severe flooding probability was notably higher under extreme CMIP6 scenarios than under their CMIP5 counterparts.

• Atmosphere
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.257-271
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• 2011

The aim of this study is to examine weather modification by urbanization and human activities. The characteristics of the urban heat island (UHI) and precipitation in Seoul metropolitan area of Korea are investigated to demonstrate that cities can change or modify local and nearby weather and climate, and to confirm that cities can initiate convection, change the behavior of convective precipitation, and enhance downstream precipitation. The data used in this study are surface meteorological station data observed in Seoul and its nearby 5 cities for the period of 1960 to 2009, and 162 Automatic Weather System stations data observed in the Seoul metropolitan area from 1998 to 2009. Air temperature and precipitation amount tend to increase with time, and relative humidity decreases because of urbanization. Similar to previous studies for other cities, the average maximum UHI is weakest in summer and is strong in autumn and winter, and the maximum UHI intensity is more frequently observed in the nighttime than in the daytime, decreases with increasing wind speed, and is enhanced for clear skies. Relatively warm regions extend in the east-west direction and relatively cold regions are located near the northern and southern mountains inside Seoul. The satellite cities in the outskirts of Seoul have been rapidly built up in recent years, thus exhibiting increases in near-surface air temperature. The yearly precipitation amount during the last 50 years is increased with time but rainy days are decreased. The heavy rainfall events of more than $20mm\;hr^{-1}$ increases with time. The substantial changes observed in precipitation in Seoul seem to be linked with the accelerated increase in the urban sprawl in recent decades which in turn has induced an intensification of the UHI effect and enhanced downstream precipitation. We also found that the frequency of intense rain showers has increased in Seoul metropolitan area.