• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.56-60
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• 2005

It is necessary to irrigate for agriculture in Korea and agricultural canals play important roles in irrigation. Nowadays gauging water discharge in canals is important because of water shortage in Korea. But It is rare to gauging water discharge in canals. Several water level gauges are installed in agricultural canals through TM/TC. But the abilities of the gauges are insufficient for agricultural water metering. In this situation, we are developing the water discharge metering system which is inexpensive and easy to maintain.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.59-68
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• 2014

Climate change influences multiple environmental aspects, certain of which are specifically related to agricultural water resources such as water supply, water management, droughts and floods. Understanding the impact of climate change on reservoirs in relation to the passage of time is an important component of water resource management for stable water supply maintenance. Changes on rainfall and hydrologic patterns due to climate change can increases the occurrence of reservoir water shortage and affect the future availability of agricultural water resources. It is a main concern for sustainable development in agricultural water resources management to evaluate adaptation capability of water supply under the future climate conditions. The purpose of this study is to predict the sustainability of agricultural water demand and supply under future climate change by applying an irrigation vulnerability assessment model to investigate evidence of climate change occurrences at a local scale with respect to potential water supply capacity and irrigation water requirement. Thus, it is a recommended practice in the development of water supply management strategies on reservoir operation under climate change.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.41-44
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• 2002

It is unreasonable to calculate the amount of agricultural water use by applying unit demand method, because it is different from other water use due to the return flow and reuse in the recycle of watershed. Data from irrigation pumping station and reservoir were analysed. Factors for water balance are precipitation, evapotranspiration, percolation, runoff, and management loss, etc. Here in the study, the amount of agricultural water was defined in the way of three different categories. First one is "Gross water" including evapotranspiration, percolation, and management loss. Second one is "Agricultural water" including Gross water and effective rainfall. Third one is "Broad water" which is abstracting the return flow from Agricultural water.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.39-44
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• 2012

Water supply capacity and operational capability in agricultural reservoirs are expressed differently in the limited storage due to seasonal and local variation of precipitation. Since agricultural water supply and demand basically assumes the uncertainty of hydrological phenomena, it is necessary to improve probabilistic approach for potential risk assessment of water supply capacity in reservoir for enhanced operational storage management. Here, it was introduced the irrigation vulnerability characteristic curves to represent the water supply capacity corresponding to probability distribution of the water demand from the paddy field and water supply in agricultural reservoir. Irrigation vulnerability probability was formulated using reliability analysis method based on water supply and demand probability distribution. The lower duration of irrigation vulnerability probability defined as the time period requiring intensive water management, and it will be considered to assessment tools as a risk mitigated water supply planning in decision making with a limited reservoir storage.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.41-49
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• 2013

Drought risk assessment is usually performed qualitatively and quantitatively depending on the definition a drought. The meteorological drought indices have a limit of not being able to consider the hydrological components such as evapotranspiration, soil moisture and runoff, because it does not consider the water demand in paddies and water supply in reservoirs. Agricultural drought was defined as the reservoir storage shortage state that cannot satisfy water requirement from the paddy fields. The objectives of this study were to suggest improved agricultural drought risk assessment in order to evaluate of regional drought vulnerability and severity studied by using Reservoir Drought Index (RDI). The RDI is designed to simulate daily water balance between available water from agricultural reservoir and water requirement in paddies and is calculated with a frequency analysis of monthly water deficit based on water demand and water supply condition. The results indicated that RDI can be used to assess regional drought risk in agricultural perspective by comparing with the historical records of drought in 2012. It can be concluded that the RDI obtained good performance to reflect the historical drought events for both spatially and temporally. In addition, RDI is expected to contribute to determine the exact situation on the current drought condition for evaluating regional drought risk and to assist the effective drought-related decision making.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.56-65
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• 2000

The characteristics of agricultural water rights were examined for the national rivers in Korea. We suggest that the national rivers could according to the actual management organization of agricultural water right be categorized into national management rivers KOWACO(Korea Agrcultural & Rural Infrastructure COrporation) management river. The agricultural water right between the national and KOWACO management rivers have different characteristics for irrigation period permit procedure water charge and type of water right. The agricultural water rights are granted in the natural discharge less than reference droughty discharge for most of national management rivers and in the developed discharge for the KOWACO and KARICO management rivers. The current system of agricultural water rights is complicated inconsistent and incapable of coping with unusual drought and therefore it needs to be improved.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.11-20
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• 2021

Recently, natural disasters caused by climate change have become more frequent across the world. Our country is also not exceptional, and it is urgent to come up with appropriate measures in the agricultural sector as the size and intensity of drought are becoming severe. Consequently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has continuously raised the need for efficient water management and governance to overcome the periodic drought. Thus, there is a need for water-saving education and water conservation governance for sustainable and efficient use of agricultural water. Governance is a cooperative mechanism involving various stakeholders, such as central, local, civil society, and businesses, to solve regional or social problems, with different definitions and concepts depending on the field or scope. In this study, we aim to present basis of a governance framework for direct water management participation involving the key agricultural water use stakeholders to imbibe the culture of water savings and conservation practices. Based on this, water-saving governance was established and operated in Gyeongju and Yeoju, in South Korea as a 'water conservation practice', while the water management status of local farmers, the reliability and importance of stakeholders, and the need for governance were investigated. The results indicate that the involvement of various stakeholders in the governance of water management yielded water-saving effects. This study provides the directions of making a framework for water-saving governance establishment and operation. It is expected that sustainable agricultural water use can be achieved in response to climate change if the governance builds and operates with agricultural water use stakeholders based on the continuous government supports.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.39-47
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• 2020

While agricultural water has been declared free in Korea to ensure access to these limited resource since the year 2000, farmers have however developed lackadaisical behavior towards water saving leading to its scarcity. To overcome this problem, a variety of experience-oriented education model was developed for farmers to promote the adoption of water conservation, and preventive measure against the drought impacts. In this study, farmers' awareness and their attitudinal behavior of agricultural water savings were investigated. The monitoring of water supply structure and the repair facilities in Pohang and Yeongdeok areas were conducted. The field visits and behavioral surveys showed a high degree of over-use and illegal water withdrawals by the farmers due to poor water-saving and management practices. We found that most of the KRC employees strongly admitted the necessity of water-saving education. On the other hand, the farmers showed good interest in the implementation of water-saving awareness through education. Besides this, most farmers agreed to adopt water-saving practices in the fields. Farmers also acknowledged the recklessness of water use was due to the aging of waterways, poor water management, and illegal water consumption. The majority of the farmers responded against imposing the water-use tariffs. However, there was a low response to paying the water-use charge. Aging agricultural facilities and the lack of institutional penalties or incentives were the major obstacles in achieving efficient water-saving. Considering the current drought frequency, urgent water-saving education of farmers was deemed necessary to prepare the farming community against the water shortages. Based on the results of this study, we have to identify the irrigation practices of farmers and provide water-saving education to enforce more efficient use and management of agricultural water.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.77-85
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• 2013

The efficient operation and management strategies of reservoirs in irrigation periods of drought events are an essential element for drought planning and countermeasure. Korea Rural Community Corporation has developed the real-time water level observation system of agricultural reservoirs to efficiently operate reservoirs, however, it is not possible to predict drought conditions, and only provides information of current situation. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate accurate irrigation vulnerability and efficiently reservoir operation rules using current water level. In this paper, the improvement methods of reservoir operation planning were developed with water supply vulnerability characteristic curves comparing to automatic water gauge at agricultural reservoirs. The 11 reservoirs were simulated applying the reservoir operation rules which was determined by irrigation vulnerability characteristic curves criteria and real time water level, and evaluated water supply situation in 2012 year. The analysis of results can be identified probabilistic possibility of water supply failures compared with the existing reservoir operation criteria. These results of efficient reservoir operation rules can be achieved enable irrigation planners to optimally manage available water resources for decision making, and contributed to maintain the water supply according to demand strategy for agricultural reservoirs management.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.65-71
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• 2016

The new concept of agricultural water supply potential, which is mean annual turnover rate times unit storage capacity, was introduced for agricultural reservoirs. We investigated characteristics of mean annual turnover rate and unit storage capacity for agricultural reservoirs with storage capacity of over $1million\;m^3$. The curve of agricultural water supply potential represents change in mean annul turnover rate according to change in unit storage capacity. The mean annual turnover rate and unit storage capacity in the reservoirs with high minimum storage ratio are significantly higher than those in the reservoirs with low minimum storage ratio. Most of unstable water supply reservoirs showed low mean annual turnover rate or low unit storage capacity, indicating that mean annual turnover rate may be an index of stability degree for agricultural water use. The reservoirs with mean annual turnover rate of over 2 and unit storage capacity of over 0.8 m may be estimated as the stable water supply zone for 10 frequency dry year. The reservoirs with high agricultural water supply potential can belong to the wide range of stable water supply zone. The results suggest that relation between mean annual turnover rate and unit storage capacity may be used in evaluating stability degree for agricultural water supply in the reservoirs.