Drought and flooding are just some of the ways the planet responds to climate change. As years pass, with increasing population and level of urbanization, these events become more frequent and severe. In South Korea, a disaster risk assessment system was developed to mitigate the flood risks in small streams. But since there is worldwide severity of water-related disasters, investigation and development of such methods of mitigation should not stop. In this study, the watershed was subdivided to reduce the time needed for a real-time flood simulation. The subdivision of the watershed was performed in three different cases with respect to the hydraulic characteristics of the watershed. The selection of an appropriate grid size to produce optimum flood simulation and efficient simulation time was also performed. This research aims to provide guidelines for watershed subdivision for real-time risk analysis systems as well as contribute to the existing knowledge of disaster risk assessment system in South Korea