The 24th IAHR-APD Congress (24th IAHR-APD Congress)

This study aims to estimate the discharge of power generation dams in the context of climate change, providing a foundation for sustainable dam operations and response strategies. Utilizing the CORDEX scenario, which aligns with Korea's rainfall patterns, it analyses future changes through statistical methods like the Conditional Copula model. The study forecasts varying precipitation increases using models like CCLM, RegCM4, WRF, and MM5, and incorporates these into a rainfall-runoff model to understand flow variability impacting dam operations.

A distributed rainfall-runoff model is constructed using the Gridded Surface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA) model. This model, applied to dam catchments, simulates physical processes such as surface discharge, stream flow, groundwater exfiltration, and evaporation, calibrated against various metrics (R2, CC, NSE, RPE) for accuracy.

The study then simulates optimal dam operations under future climate scenarios, using the GSSHA model for flow calculation and the MM5 model for inflow and water quality simulation. This is critical for developing effective management strategies for dam operations in changing climatic conditions.

Furthermore, the study proposes a three-tier power release operation plan focused on multi-purpose water use, predicting an additional discharge of 6,000-10,000 million tons in the second tier over the third. It also estimates an annual cost of approximately 7 billion won to maintain river flows.

In conclusion, this research provides critical insights and operational plans for power generation dams, considering the impacts of climate change. These findings and proposed strategies will be instrumental in managing power generation dams that are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.