Flood Inundation Analysis Considering Mega Floods in PyeonChang River Basin of South Korea

Abstract:

Recently, abnormal climate has frequently occurred around the world due to global warming. In South Korea, more than 90% of damage due to natural disasters has been caused by extreme events like strong wind and heavy rainfall. Most studies regarding the impact of extreme events on flood damage have focused on a single heavy rainfall event. But several heavy rainfall events can be occurred continuously and these events will affect occurring huge flood damage. This study explores the impact of the continuous extreme events on the flood damage. Here we call Mega flood for this type of flood which is caused by the continuous extreme events. Inter Event Time Definition (IETD) method is applied for making Mega flood scenarios depending on independent rainfall event scenarios. Flood inundations are estimated in each situation of the Mega flood scenarios and the flood damages are estimated using a Multi-Dimensional Flood Damage Analysis (MD-FDA) method. As a result, we expect that flood damage caused by Mega flood leads to much greater than damage driven by single rainfall event. The results of this study can be contributed for making a guideline and design criteria in order to reduce flood damage.

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and grant funded by the Korean government (MEST; No. 2011-0028564).