Analyzing on the cause of downstream submergence damages in rural areas with dam discharge using dam management data

Abstract

The downstream submergence damages caused during the flood season in 2020, around the Yongdam-dam and five other sites, were analyzed using related dam management data. Hourly- and daily-data were collected from public national websites and to conduct various analyses, such as autocorrelation, partial-correlation, stationary test, trend test, Granger causality, Rescaled analysis, and principal statistical analysis, to find the cause of the catastrophic damages in 2020. The damage surrounding the Yongdam-dam in 2020 was confirmed to be caused by mis-management of the flood season water level. A similar pattern was found downstream of the Namgang- and Hapcheon-dams, however the damage caused via discharges from these dams in same year is uncertain. Conversely, a different pattern from that of the Yongdam-dam was seen in the areas downstream of Sumjingang- and Daecheongdams, in which the management of the flood season water level appeared appropriate and hence, the damages is assumed to have occurred via the increase in the absolute discharge amount from the dams and flood control capacity leakage of the downstream river. Because of the non-stationarity of the management data, we adapted the wavelet transform analysis to observe the behaviors of the dam management data in detail. Based on the results, an increasing trend in the discharge amount was observed from the dams after the year 2000, which may serve as a warning about similar trends in the future. Therefore, additional and continuous research on downstream safety against dam discharges is necessary.