The impacts of climate change on local hydrology and low flow frequency in the Geum River Basin, Korea

Abstract

The climate sensitive analysis of potential climate change on streamflow has been conducted using a hydrologic model to identify hydrologic variability associated with climate scenarios as a function of perturbed climatic variables (e.g. carbon dioxide, temperature, and precipitation). The interannual variation of water resources availability as well as low flow frequency driven by monsoonal time shifts have been investigated to evaluate the likelihood of droughts in a changing climate. The results show that the timing shift of the monsoon window associated with future climate scenarios clearly affect annual water yield change of - 12 and - 8% corresponding to 1-month earlier and 1-month later monsoon windows, respectively. Also, a more severe low flow condition has been predicted at 0·03 m 3/s as opposed to the historic 7Q10 flow of 1·54 m 3/s given at extreme climate scenarios. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.