Jaewon Kwak

Hydrological Drought Analysis in Namhan River Basin, Korea

AbstractAnalysis and forecasting of droughts are important for water resources management. The objective of this study is to analyze hydrological droughts using the joint drought probability distribution derived from the copula theory and analyze drought return periods upstream of Namhan River in the upper Han River basin, Korea. Results of the study shows that the severest drought that occurred from 1981 to 1982 has a 110-year return period.

Scrub Typhus Incidence Modeling with Meteorological Factors in South Korea.

Since its recurrence in 1986, scrub typhus has been occurring annually and it is considered as one of the most prevalent diseases in Korea. Scrub typhus is a 3rd grade nationally notifiable disease that has greatly increased in Korea since 2000. The objective of this study is to construct a disease incidence model for prediction and quantification of the incidences of scrub typhus. Using data from 2001 to 2010, the incidence Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model, which considers the time-lag between scrub typhus and minimum temperature, precipitation and average wind speed based on the Granger causality and spectral analysis, is constructed and tested for 2011 to 2012. Results show reliable simulation of scrub typhus incidences with selected predictors, and indicate that the seasonality in meteorological data should be considered.

A comparative study for water temperature modelling in a small basin, the Fourchue River, Quebec, Canada

ABSTRACT Analysis and forecasting of water temperature are important for water ecological management. The objective of this study is to compare models for water temperature during the summer season for an impounded river. In a case study, we consider hydro-climatic and water temperature data for the Fourchue River (St-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, Quebec, Canada) between 2011 and 2014. Three different models are applied, which are broadly characterized as deterministic (CEQUEAU), stochastic (Auto-regressive Moving Average with eXogenous variables or ARMAX) and nonlinear (Nonlinear Autoregressive with eXogenous variables or NARX). The efficiency of each model is analysed and compared. The results show that the ARMAX is the best performing water temperature model for the Fourchue River and the CEQUEAU model also simulates water temperature adequately without the overfitting issues that seem to plague the autoregressive models. EDITOR M.C. Acreman ASSOCIATE EDITOR R. Hirsch

Evaluation of Parameter Characteristics of a Storage Function Model

AbstractApplying a lumped runoff model in ungauged basins requires the relationships between the parameter characteristics of a model with watershed characteristics. The authors of this study designed various methods to evaluate the parameter characteristics of the storage function model using the kinematic wave model. They applied genetic algorithms to 101 observed events at 17 dam basins in Korea. The results confirmed that there is a limit to developing an empirical equation for parameter estimation on the basis of observed data. As part of the measures taken to overcome the limit, a runoff simulation was implemented that considered 35,000 various conditions by configuring virtual basins, and the parameter of the storage function model was evaluated based on the results. Hence, the authors discovered that a lag time of the storage function method is primarily determined to be closely connected with the characteristics of the longest stream, and the storage coefficient has high relevancy with the basic ...

Future Climate Data from RCP 4.5 and Occurrence of Malaria in Korea

Since its reappearance at the Military Demarcation Line in 1993, malaria has been occurring annually in Korea. Malaria is regarded as a third grade nationally notifiable disease susceptible to climate change. The objective of this study is to quantify the effect of climatic factors on the occurrence of malaria in Korea and construct a malaria occurrence model for predicting the future trend of malaria under the influence of climate change. Using data from 2001–2011, the effect of time lag between malaria occurrence and mean temperature, relative humidity and total precipitation was investigated using spectral analysis. Also, a principal component regression model was constructed, considering multicollinearity. Future climate data, generated from RCP 4.5 climate change scenario and CNCM3 climate model, was applied to the constructed regression model to simulate future malaria occurrence and analyze the trend of occurrence. Results show an increase in the occurrence of malaria and the shortening of annual time of occurrence in the future.

Water temperature assessment on the small ecological stream under climate change

Water temperature affects physical and biological processes in ecologies on river system and is important conditions for growth rate and spawning of fish species. The objective of this study is to compare models for water temperature during the summer season for the Fourchue River (St-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, Quebec, Canada). For this, three different models, which are CEQUEAU, Auto-regressive Moving Average with eXogenous input and Nonlinear Autoregressive with eXogenous input, were applied and compared. Also, future water temperature in the Fourchue river were simulated and analyzed its result based on the CMIP5 climate models, RCP 2.6, 4.5, 8.5 climate change scenarios. As the result of the study, the water temperature in the Fourchue river are actually changed and median water temperature will increase 0.2 ~ 0.7 °C in June and could decrease by 0.2~1.1°C in September. Also, the UILT (24.9°C) for brook trout are also likely to occurred for several days.

Nearest Neighbor–Genetic Algorithm for Downscaling of Climate Change Data from GCMs

AbstractThe spatial and temporal resolution of readily available climate change projections from general circulation models (GCM) has limited applicability. Consequently, several downscaling methods have been developed. These methods predominantly focus on a single meteorological series at specific sites. Spatial and temporal correlation of the precipitation and temperature fields is important for hydrologic applications. This research uses a nearest neighbor–genetic algorithm (NN–GA) method to analyze the Namhan River basin in the Korean Peninsula. Using the simulation results of the CNRM-CM for the RCP 8.5 climate change scenario, archived in the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), the GCM projections are downscaled through the NN–GA. The NN–GA simulations reproduce the features of the observed series in terms of site statistics as well as across variables and sites.

Assessment of Meteorological Drought in Korea under Climate Change

Drought has become one of the most important elements for water resources planning and management in Korea. The objective of this study is to estimate the spatial distribution of drought and change in the drought characteristics over time due to climate change. For the spatial characterization of drought, the standardized precipitation index (SPI) is calculated from the 45 observatories in Korea and the spatial distribution is also estimated based on the joint probability analysis using the copula method. To analyze the effect of climate change, spatial distribution of drought in the future is analyzed using the SPI time series calculated from Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenarios and HADGEM3-RA regional climate model. The results show that the Youngsan River and the northwest of Nakdong River basins in Korea have nearly doubled drought amount compared to the present and are most vulnerable to drought in near future (2016 to 2039 years).

A Regionalization of Downscaled GCM Data Considering Geographical Features in a Mountainous Area

This study establishes a methodology for the application of downscaled GCM data in a mountainous area having large spatial variations of rainfall and attempts to estimate the change of rainfall characteristics in the future under climate change. The Namhan river basin, which is in the mountainous area of the Korean peninsula, has been chosen as the study area. neural network-simple kriging with varying local means (ANN-SKlm) has been built by combining the artificial neural network, which is one of the general downscaling techniques, with the SKlm regionalization technique, which can reflect the geomorphologic characteristics. The ANN-SKlm technique was compared with the Thiessen technique and the ordinary kriging (OK) technique in the study area and the SKlm technique showed the best results. Future rainfall levels have been predicted by downscaling the data from CNRM-CM3 climate model, which was simulated under the A1B scenario. According to the results of future annual average rainfall by each regionalization technique, the Thiessen and OK techniques underestimated the future rainfall when compared to the ANN-SKlm technique. Therefore this methodology will be very useful for the prediction of future rainfall levels under climate change, most notably in a mountainous area.