Estimation of Water Availability Considering Climate Change in the Korean Peninsula

Abstract:

The hydrological cycle is directly affected by climate and human intervention. Climate change is expected to affect hydrology and water resources. In Korean Peninsula, the rainfall pattern is seasonally concentrated, causing temporal and spatial variations in water availability. Many previous studies have investigated that the Korean Peninsula region is vulnerable to changes in water availability with changing climate, but a majority of the studies have focused on natural river discharge. However, the present-day hydrological cycle is not natural, but is affected by human activity, such as the water demands of agriculture, the industrial and domestic sector, and reservoir operations. In this study, water availability considering the impacts of human activity and climate change in the Korean Peninsula region is assessed in terms of water supply and demand. To assess present and future water availability, the integrated water resources model H08, which has six sub-modules to address land surfaces, river routing, crop growth, environmental flow requirements, and anthropogenic water withdrawal (Hanasaki et al., 2008), was applied to simulate historical and future hydrological processes based on climate scenarios. The model was calibrated and validated based on observed river discharge data. The simulation results show the temporal and spatial variations of water availability in the Korean Peninsula region. Results of this research could be used for spatial planning, taking into account the water availability.