Evaluation of Runoff‧Peak Rate Runoff and Sediment Yield under Various Rainfall Intensities and Patterns Using WEPP Watershed Model

Recently, changes in rainfall intensity and patterns have been causing increasing soil loss worldwide. As a result, the water ecosystem becomes worse and crops yield are reduced with soil loss and nutrient loss with it. Many studies have been proposed to estimate runoff and soil loss to predict or decrease non-point source pollution. Although the USLE has been used for many years in estimating soil losses, the USLE cannot reflect effects on soil loss of changes in rainfall intensity and patterns. The WEPP, physically based model, is capable of predicting soil loss and runoff using various rainfall intensity. In this study, the WEPP model was simulated for sediment yield, runoff and peak runoff using data of 5, 10, 30, 60 minute term rainfall, Huff`s method and design rainfall. In case of rainfall interval of 5 minutes and 60 minutes, the sediment and runoff values decreased by 24% and 19%, respectively. The peak rate runoff values decreased by 16% when rainfall interval changed from 5 minutes to 60 minutes, indicating the peak rate runoff values are affected by rainfall intensity to some degrees. As a result of simulating using Huff`s method, all values (sediment yield, runoff, peak runoff) were found to be the greatest at third quartile. According to the analysis under various design rainfall conditions (2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 200, 300 years frequency), sediment yield, runoff, and peak runoff of 906.2%, 249.4% and 183.9% were estimated using 2 year to 300 year frequency rainfall data.