• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.903-913
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• 2021

In the flood season, the measurement of the river discharge has many restrictions due to reasons such as budget, manpower, safety, convenience in measurement and so on. In particular, when heavy rain events occur due to typhoons, etc., it is difficult to measure the amount of flood due to the above problems. In order to improve this problem, in this study, a method was developed that can measure the river discharge in a flood season simply and safely in a short time with minimal manpower by combining the functions of a drone and a surface velocity doppler radar. To overcome the mechanical limitations of drones caused by weather issues such as wind and rainfall derived from the measurement of the river discharge using the conventional drone, we developed a drone with P56 grade dustproof and waterproof performance, stable flight capability at a wind speed of up to 36 km/h, and a payload weight of up to 10 kg. Further, to eliminate vibration which is the most important constraint factor in the measurement with a surface velocity doppler radar, a damper plate was developed as a device that combines a drone and a surface velocity Doppler radar. The velocity meter DSVM (Dron and Surface Veloctity Meter using doppler radar) that combines the flight equipment with the velocity meter was produced. The error of ±3.5% occurred as a result of measuring the river discharge using DSVM at the point of Geumsan-gun (Hwangpunggyo) located at Bonghwang stream (the first tributary stream of the Geum River). In addition, when calculating the mean velocity from the measured surface velocity, the measurement was performed using ADCP simultaneously to improve accuracy, and the mean velocity conversion factor (0.92) was calculated by comparing the mean velocity. In this study, the discharge measured by combining a drone and a surface velocity meter was compared with the discharge measured using ADCP and floats, so that the application and utility of DSVM was confirmed.