The relative impacts of climate change and urbanization on the hydrological response of a Korean urban watershed

We assessed the relative hydrological impacts of climate change and urbanization using an integrated approach that links the statistical downscaling model (SDSM), the Hydrological Simulation Program-Fortran (HSPF) and the impervious cover model (ICM). A case study of the Anyangcheon watershed, a representative urban region in Korea, illustrates how the proposed framework can be used to analyse the impacts of climate change and urbanization on water quantity and quality. The evaluation criteria were measurements of low flow (99, 95, and 90 percentile flow), high flow (10, 5, and 1 percentile value), pollutant concentration (30, 10, and 1 percentile value), and the numbers of days required to satisfy the target water quantity and quality for a sensitive comparison of subtle impacts of variations in these measures. Nine scenarios, including three climate scenarios (present conditions, A1B, and A2) and three land use change scenarios, were analysed using the HSPF model. The impacts of climate change on low flow (34·1-59·8% increase) and high flow (29·1-37·1% increase) were found to be much greater than those on the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) (3·8-10·0% decrease). On the other hand, the impacts of urbanization on water quality (19·0-44·6% increase) are more significant than those on high (1·0-4·4% increase) and low flow (11·4-25·6% decrease). Furthermore, low flows are more sensitive to urbanization than high flows. The number of days required to satisfy the target water quantity and quality can be a sensitive criterion to compare the subtle impacts of climate and urbanization on human society, especially as they are much more sensitive than low flow and pollutant concentration. Finally, urbanization has a potent impact on BOD while climate change has a high impact on flow rate. Therefore, the impacts of both climate change and urbanization must be included in watershed management and water resources planning for sustainable development.