Assessment of The Flood Vulnerability of Dams due to Climate Change in South Korea

초록

Due to monsoons and tropical cyclones, more than two-thirds of the total annual precipitation falls during the summer rainy season of June to August in Korea. In addition, the geographical features of Korea produce relatively high peak flood discharge in conjunction with short duration rainfall events. This situation is getting worse as climate change becomes severe having a significant impact on flood control in Korea. In this study, a flood control vulnerability analysis that considers climate change is performed. The Han River Basin, located in the center of the Korean Peninsula, accounts for 23% of the territory of the Republic of Korea and is the country’s largest river basin, with an area of 23,000 km2. Within the basin, several multi-purpose dams are operated to reduce the risk of flood damage. We explored the effects of these dams on flood control considering different climate change scenarios. For the scenarios developed, runoff events are simulated by HEC-HMS based on the rainfall obtained under climate change. Finally, a comparison between the current flood control capacity of the dams in the Han River Basin and future flood capacity, obtained from the results of the simulation, was made to assess the vulnerability of flood control provided by multi-purpose dams considering these possible climate change scenarios.