Water balance assessment for stable water management in island region

Korea repeatedly experiences floods and droughts that cause traumatic environmental conditions with huge economic impact. With an approach and solution such as Smart Water Grid these problems can be alleviated. Tapping into the retention ponds behind dams, rainfall harvest facilities in urban areas and any other structures installed to store rainfall water during flood events will mitigate the damage of flooding and provide a new source of national water resources. Similarly, purified waste water, ground water and desalinated sea water can also be feasible to use as alternative water resources. In this study, the water balance assessment model is being developed as a Smart Water Grid research. In fact, large proportions of water resources in Korea rely on river fresh water. Also in the Youngjongdo island, tap water from water purification plant which use original source from the Han river. However the water supply system in the island is quite dangerous since the water purification plant is located in Incheon city and the water comes to island through the sea and no other source is used in the island. Therefore, once the accident at main water pipe in the sea, no water is available in this island. Information on water availability and water needs are crucial to identify hot spots of quantitative pressures on water resources. In this study, all available alternative water sources are calculated by the model developed through this study. Several physical and stochastic models on hydraulic and hydrological approaches are nominated to investigate physical characteristics of catchments. Through this study, following results were concluded; a) To preserve the water balance in the study area, this study assessed the water balance within consideration of scenarios and suggested smart water management system which can cover potential risks on current water distribution system.; b) Within the scenario of accident on water supply system, all potential water resources in the island have been calculated through the model developed through this study. As well as, designed capacity of WWTP and desalination plant could also add self-supply water resources. The water balance in the study area was analyzed through estimation of water demand and available water resources in the study area. Although the study area is an island which the major water sources such as dams or national managed rivers are not connected to, water resources from rainfall-runoff through small streams, reservoirs and retention ponds were sufficient to cover water demand.; and d) This study suggested simple and fundamental directions to apply smart water management technologies for the island region which can cover the water for non-drinking purposes at ordinary state. And the smart water management system was analyzed as being able to counter potential problems on water supply system which causes short-term water cutting off.