Characteristics of Water Budget Components in Paddy Rice Field under the Asian Monsoon Climate: application of HSPF-Paddy model

The HSPF-Paddy model was applied to the Bochung watershed in Korea to compare water budget components by the land use types under the Asian monsoon climate. The calibration of HSPF-Paddy during 1992–2001 with PEST, a package program to optimize HSPF, and validation during 1985–1991 were carried out. The model efficiencies for monthly stream flow are 0.85 for calibration and 0.84 for validation. The simulation of annual mean runoff met the criteria of water budget analysis with the acceptable error level (less than 10 percent mean error). The simulation of the movement of water from paddy rice field to watershed was successful, and application of HSPF-Paddy coupled with PEST was able to improve accuracy of model simulation with reduced time and efforts for model calibration. The results of water budget analysis show that most of the outflow (86%) for the urban area occurred through surface runoff, showing the highest rate among the land use types compared. Significant amounts of water are irrigated to paddy rice fields, and the runoff depth as well as evapotranspiration from paddy rice field is higher than other land use types. Hydrological characteristic of paddy rice field is that most of water movement occurred at the surface area, resulting from the low infiltration rate and manning’s coefficient, as well as ponded water throughout the growing season. Major impact on input and output of water were precipitation and runoff, respectively, influenced by an Asian monsoon climate. [authors abstract]