Abstract

Despite the close linkage in changes between the ecological and hydrological processes in forest ecosystems, an integrative approach has not been incorporated successfully. In this study, based on the vegetation and hydrologic data of the Gwangneung headwater catchment with the Geographic Information System, we attempted such an integrated approach by employing the Regional Hydro-Ecologic Simulation System (RHESSys). To accomplish this, we have (1) constructed the input data for RHESSys, (2) developed an integrated calibration system that enables to consider both ecological and hydrological processes simultaneously, and (3) performed sensitivity analysis to estimate the optimum parameters. Our sensitivity analyses on six soil parameters that affect streamflow patterns and peak flow show that the decay parameter of horizontal saturated hydraulic conductivity and porosity decay by depth (PD) had the highest sensitivity. The optimization of these two parameters to estimate the optimum streamflow variation resulted in a prediction accuracy of 0.75 in terms of Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSec). These results provide an important basis for future evaluation and mapping of the watershed-scale soil moisture and evapotranspiration in forest ecosystems of Korea.

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