Catchment Similarity Assessment Based on Catchment Characteristics of GIS in Geum River Catchments, Korea

Similarity measure of catchments is essential for regionalization studies, which provide in depth analysis in hydrological response and flood estimations at ungauged catchments. However, this similarity measure is often biased to the selected catchments and is not clearly explained in hydrological sense. This study applied a type of hydrological similarity distance measure-Flood Estimation Handbook to 25 Geum River catchments, Korea. Three Catchment Characteristics, Area(A)-Annual precipitation(SAAR)-SCS Curve Number(CN), are used in Euclidian distance measures. Furthermore, six index of Flow Duration Curve are applied to clustering analysis of SPSS. The catchments` grouping of hydrological similarity measures suggests three groups (H1, H2 and H3) and the four catchments are not grouped in this study. The clustering analysis of FDC provides four Groups; F1, F2, F3 and F4. The six catchments (out of seven) of H1 are grouped in F1, while Sangyeogyo is grouped in F2. The four catchments (out of six) of H2 are also grouped in F2, while Cheongju and Guryong are grouped in F1. The catchments of H3 are categorized in F1. The authors examine the results (H1, H2 and H3) of similarity measure based on catchment physical descriptors with results (F1 and F2) of clustering based on catchment hydrological response. The results of hydrological similarity measures are supported by clustering analysis of FDC. This study shows a potential of hydrological catchment similarity measures in Korea.