Utility of high-resolution climate model simulations for water resources prediction over the Korean Peninsula: a sensitivity study

The feasibility of using high spatial resolution global climate models (GCMs) based on an indicator variable (surface precipitation, temperature, or discharge) to simulate regional water resources management and predict future water supplies for the case of the Korean peninsula was studied. A sensitivity analysis of parameters also was conducted. GCM simulations could discriminate between high and low regional observations of a target variable. The significance probability of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to detect differences between two distributions. Observed mean areal precipitation and temperature, and watershed outlet discharge values for seven major river basins in Korea were used as target variables. Model results suggest that this approach is useful for water resources planning and management on a long-term (monthly) scale. For several basins, use of large-scale surface precipitation and temperature data from high resolution GCMs is likely to be suitable for predicting regional surface precipitation, temperature, and discharge (water supply).