Subgrid Model of Water Storage in Paddy Fields for a Grid-Based Distributed Rainfall–Runoff Model and Assessment of Paddy Field Dam Effects on Flood Control

Abstract

Paddy field dams are basin-level flood control measures that promote rainwater storage; however, a general runoff model cannot adequately describe the water balance in paddy fields. This study develops a subgrid model for evaluating paddy water balance considering land use on a computational grid. Subgrid models can account for the storage effect of paddy field dams without disregarding the general grid-based distributed rainfall–runoff model framework. To investigate the effect of current paddy field storage and the introduction of paddy field dams on reducing peak flood discharge, rainfall–runoff analysis was conducted using the proposed model in the Kashima River basin, which flows into Lake Inba-numa in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The computational results indicated that the rainwater storage effect of current paddy fields reduces the peak river discharge, suggesting that the drainage process of the paddy field should be incorporated into runoff models. Furthermore, the storage effect of paddy fields became more pronounced as the height of the drainage pipe in the paddy field dam increased. The calculated results quantitatively show the flood control effect of paddy field storage over the entire basin; thus, the proposed subgrid model may be a useful tool for promoting basin-level flood control measures.