poster - International Conference of Agricultural Engineering

Evaluating the Impact of Climate Change on Irrigation Vulnerability
in South Korea
Min-Won Jang 1 *, Soo-Jin Kim 2 , Dae-Sik Kim 3 , Sang-Min Kim 1
1 Gyeongsang Nat’l University & Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Jinju-daero 501,
Jinju, 660-701 Republic of Korea
2 Gyeongsang Nat’l University, Jinju-daero 501, Jinju, 660-701 Republic of Korea
3 Chungnam Nat’l University, Daehak-ro 99, Daejeon, 305-764 Republic of Korea
*Corresponding author. E-mail: mwjang@gnu.ac.kr
Abstract
This study aims to assess climate change impacts on irrigation vulnerability in South Korea.
Irrigation vulnerability is determined by a quantitative balance between crop water
consumption and water resource availability in a specific area. South Korea was divided into
5 km x 5 km zones, and a simple water balance model was applied to the grid units. Two
types of data, climatic and hydrologic, was prepared and pre-processed to produce the
attribute information associated with each zone. The irrigation vulnerability of each grid was
evaluated based on the simulated water balance data for all four decades since 1971.
Different vulnerability indices such as CWSR (Crop Water Satisfaction Ratio), AWBR
(Accumulated Water Balance Ratio), and REIC (Rainfall Effectiveness Index for Crops) are
suggested to represent the potential risk of water stress for cropland. This proposed
methodology is expected to be adopted for global-scale assessment of vulnerability to
agricultural water stress.
Keywords: climate change, irrigation, paddy fields, vulnerability
1. Introduction
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report (2007)
defined vulnerability as “the degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope
with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes.” Fűssel
(2010) defined vulnerability as a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate
change, as well as the variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive
capacity. The concept of vulnerability has been adopted in a wide range of disciplines and
has been used in studies on the assessments, indicators, and adaptations that have been
occurring in various parts of the world (Jun et al., 2011; Perveen & James, 2011; Antwi-Agyei
et al., 2012). Especially in terms of agricultural water management, measuring irrigation
vulnerability would provide critical information for identification and prioritization of adaptation
opportunities against climate change in a region. Design standards and management rules
for irrigation facilities might need to be adjusted according to the vulnerability assessment.
In South Korea, irrigation is a very sensitive issue for paddy rice cultivation. Discrepancies
between water supply (precipitation) and demand (irrigation requirement) in time and location
has motivated policies establishing strong water use systems, and resulted in more than
17,500 irrigation reservoirs, 18,000 weirs, and 23,400 tube wells (MFAFF & KRCC, 2011).
However, the unsteady and unpredictable climate variation induced by global warming is
threatening traditional water management practices in Korea, and it may increase
vulnerability to water scarcity in agriculture. Therefore, this study was done in order to
determine a method to assess irrigation vulnerability to drought in paddy fields, and to
analyze vulnerability in the past and future with regard to climate variability.