Estimation of Future Design Flood Under Non-Stationarity for Wonpyeongcheon Watershed

Abstract

Along with climate change, it is reported that the scale and frequency of extreme climate events show unstable tendency of increase. Thus, to comprehend the change characteristics of precipitation data, it is needed to consider non-stationary. The main objectives of this study were to estimate future design floods for Wonpyeongcheon watershed based on RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) scenario. Wonpyeongcheon located in the Keum River watershed was selected as the study area. Historical precipitation data of the past 35 years (1976∼2010) were collected from the Jeonju meteorological station. Future precipitation data based on RCP4.5 were also obtained for the period of 2011∼2100. Systematic bias between observed and simulated data were corrected using the quantile mapping (QM) method. The parameters for the bias-correction were estimated by non-parametric method. A non-stationary frequency analysis was conducted with moving average method which derives change characteristics of generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution parameters. Design floods for different durations and frequencies were estimated using rational formula. As the result, the GEV parameters (location and scale) showed an upward tendency indicating the increase of quantity and fluctuation of an extreme precipitation in the future. The probable rainfall and design flood based on non-stationarity showed higher values than those of stationarity assumption by 1.2%∼54.9% and 3.6%∼54.9%, respectively, thus empathizing the necessity of non-stationary frequency analysis. The study findings are expected to be used as a basis to analyze the impacts of climate change and to reconsider the future design criteria of Wonpyeongcheon watershed.