This paper presents a technique for estimating discharge rating curve parameters. In typical practical applications, the original non-linear rating curve is transformed into a simple linear regression model by log-transforming the measurement without examining the effect of log transformation. The model of pseudo-likelihood estimation is developed in this study to deal with heteroscedasticity of residuals in the original non-linear model. The parameters of rating curves and variance functions of errors are simultaneously estimated by the pseudo-likelihood estimation(P-LE) method. Simulated annealing, a global optimization technique, is adapted to minimize the log likelihood of the weighted residuals. The P-LE model was then applied to a hypothetical site where stage-discharge data were generated by incorporating various errors. Results of the P-LE model show reduced error values and narrower confidence intervals than those of the common log-transform linear least squares(LT-LR) model. Also, the limit of water levels for segmentation of discharge rating curve is estimated in the process of P-LE using the Heaviside function. Finally, model performance of the conventional log-transformed linear regression and the developed model, P-LE are computed and compared. After statistical simulation, the developed method is then applied to the real data sets from 5 gauge stations in the Geum River basin. It can be suggested that this developed strategy is applied to real sites to successfully determine weights taking into account error distributions from the observed discharge data.