• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.1-14
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• 2019

North Korea has frequently suffered from extreme agricultural crop droughts, which have led to food shortages, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The increasing frequency of extreme droughts, due to global warming and climate change, has increased the importance of enhancing the national capacity for drought management. Historically, a meteorological drought index based on data collected from weather stations has been widely used. But it has limitations in terms of the distribution of weather stations and the spatial pattern of drought impacts. Satellite-based data can be obtained with the same accuracy and at regular intervals, and is useful for long-term change analysis and environmental monitoring and wide area access in time and space. The Evaporative Stress Index (ESI), a satellite-based drought index using the ratio of potential and actual evaporation, is being used to detect drought response as a index of the droughts occurring rapidly over short periods of time. It is more accurate and provides faster analysis of drought conditions compared to the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), and the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). In this study, we analyze drought events during 2015-2017 in North Korea using the ESI satellite-based drought index to determine drought response by comparing with it with the SPI and SPEI drought indices.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.62 no.2
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• pp.63-73
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• 2020

Drought is considered as a devastating hazard that causes serious agricultural, ecological and socio-economic impacts worldwide. Fundamentally, the drought can be defined as temporarily different levels of inadequate precipitation, soil moisture, and water supply relative to the long-term average conditions. From no unified definition of droughts, droughts have been divided into different severity level, i.e., moderate drought, severe drought, extreme drought and exceptional drought. The drought severity classification defined the ranges for each indicator for each dryness level. Because the ranges of the various indicators often don't coincide, the final drought category tends to be based on what the majority of the indicators show and on local observations. Evaporative Stress Index (ESI), a satellite-based drought index using the ratio of potential and actual evaporation, is being used as a index of the droughts occurring rapidly in a short period of time from studies showing a more sensitive and fast response to drought compared to Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), and Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). However, ESI is difficult to provide an objective drought assessment because it does not have clear drought severity classification criteria. In this study, U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM), the standard for drought determination used in the United States, was applied to ESI, and the Percentile method was used to classify drought categories by severity. Regarding the actual 2017 drought event in South Korea, we compare the spatial distribution of drought area and understand the USDM-based ESI by comparing the results of Standardized Groundwater level Index (SGI) and drought impact information. These results demonstrated that the USDM-based ESI could be an effective tool to provide objective drought conditions to inform management decisions for drought policy.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.60 no.6
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• pp.121-131
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• 2018

Climate change has caused changes in environmental factors that have a direct impact on agriculture such as temperature and precipitation. The meteorological disaster that has the greatest impact on agriculture is drought, and its forecasts are closely related to agricultural production and water supply. In the case of terrestrial data, the accuracy of the spatial map obtained by interpolating the each point data is lowered because it is based on the point observation. Therefore, acquisition of various meteorological data through satellite imagery can complement this terrestrial based drought monitoring. In this study, Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) was used as satellite data for drought determination. The ESI was developed by NASA and USDA, and is calculated through thermal observations of GOES satellites, MODIS, Landsat 5, 7 and 8. We will identify the difference between ESI and other satellite-based drought assessment indices (Vegetation Health Index, VHI, Leaf Area Index, LAI, Enhanced Vegetation Index, EVI), and use it to analyze the drought in South Korea, and examines the applicability of ESI as a new indicator of agricultural drought monitoring.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.51-61
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• 2020

Drought events are not clear when those start and end compared with other natural disasters. Because drought events have different timing and severity of damage depending on the region, various studies are being conducted using satellite images to identify regional drought occurrence differences. In this study, we investigated the applicability of drought assessment using the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite images. The ESI is an indicator of agricultural drought that describes anomalies in actual and reference evapotranspiration (ET) ratios that are retrieved using remotely sensed inputs of Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Leaf Area Index (LAI). However, these approaches have a limited spatial resolution when mapping detailed vegetation stress caused by drought, and drought hazard in the actual crop cultivation areas due to the small crop cultivation in South Korea. For these reasons, the development of a drought index that provides detailed higher resolution ESI, a 500 m resolution image is essential to improve the country's drought monitoring capabilities. The newly calculated ESI was verified through the existing 5 km resolution ESI and historical records for drought impacts. This study evaluates the performance of the recently developed 500 m resolution ESI for severe and extreme drought events that occurred in South Korea in 2001, 2009, 2014, and 2017. As a result, the two ES Is showed high correlation and tendency using Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis. In addition, it will provide the necessary information on the spatial resolution to evaluate regional drought hazard assessment and and the small-scale cultivation area across South Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.341-341
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• 2017

Abiotic stress adversely affects crop growth worldwide. Drought of the major abiotic stresses have the most significant impact on all of the crop. The main objective of this study was to assess the effects of drought stress on photochemical performance and vitality of maize (Zea mays L.). The photochemical characteristics were analyzed in the context of period of drought stress during the maize growth. Drought experiment was carried out for four weeks, thereafter, the drought treated maize was re-watered. The polyphasic OJIP fluorescence transient was used to evaluate the behavior of photosystem II (PSII) and photosystem I (PSI) during the entire experiment period. In drought stress, the performance Index (PI) level was reached earlier when compared to the controls. For the screening of drought stress tolerance the drought factor index (DFI) of each variety was calculated as follow DFI= log(A) + 2log(B). All the fourteen cultivars show DFI ranged from -0.69 to 0.30, meaning less useful in selection of drought tolerant cultivars. PI and electron transport flux values of fourteen cultivars were to indicate reduction of photosynthetic performance during the early vegetative stage under drought stress. In conclusion, DFI and energy flux parameters can be used as photochemical and physiological index.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.66 no.3
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• pp.25-37
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• 2024

Global warming-induced drought inflicts significant socio-economic and environmental damage. In Korea, the persistent drought in the southern region since 2022 has severely affected water supplies, agriculture, forests, and ecosystems due to uneven precipitation distribution. To effectively prepare for and mitigate such impacts, it is imperative to develop proactive measures supported by early monitoring systems. In this study, we analyzed the spatiotemporal changes of multiple evapotranspiration-based drought indices, focusing on the flash drought event in the southern region in 2022. The indices included the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) considering precipitation and temperature, and the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) based on satellite images. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and SPEI indices utilized temperature and precipitation data from meteorological observation stations, while the ESI index was based on satellite image data provided by the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite. Additionally, we utilized the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) provided by the North Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a supplementary index to ESI, enabling us to perform more effective drought monitoring. We compared the degree and extent of drought in the southern region through four drought indices, and analyzed the causes and effects of drought from various perspectives. Findings indicate that the ESI is more sensitive in detecting the timing and scope of drought, aligning closely with observed drought trends.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.115-125
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• 2020

Background: The phenomenon of tree dieback in forest ecosystems around the world, which is known to be associated with high temperatures that occur simultaneously with drought, has received much attention. Korea is experiencing a rapid rise in temperature relative to other regions. Particularly in the growth of evergreen conifers, temperature increases in winter and spring can have great influence. In recent years, there have been reports of group dieback of Pinus densiflora trees in Korea, and many studies are being conducted to identify the causes. However, research on techniques to diagnose and monitor drought stress in forest ecosystems on local and regional scales has been lacking. Results: In this study, we developed and evaluated an index to identify drought and high-temperature vulnerability in Pinus densiflora forests. We found the Drought Stress Index (DSI) that we developed to be effective in generally assessing the drought-reactive physiology of trees. During 2001-2016, in Korea, we refined the index and produced DSI data from a 1 × 1-km unit grid spanning the entire country. We found that the DSI data correlated with the event data of Pinus densiflora mass dieback compiled in this study. The average DSI value at times of occurrence of Pinus densiflora group dieback was 0.6, which was notably higher than during times of nonoccurrence. Conclusions: Our combination of the Standard Precipitation Index and growing degree days evolved and short- and long-term effects into a new index by which we found meaningful results using dieback event data. Topographical and biological factors and climate data should be considered to improve the DSI. This study serves as the first step in developing an even more robust index to monitor the vulnerability of forest ecosystems in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.283-290
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• 2023

The Republic of Korea reclaimed land to increase its food self-sufficiency rate, but the yield was reduced due to abnormal climate. In this study, it was hypothesized that rapid and continuous monitoring technology could help improve yield. Using the vegetation index (VI) analysis, the drought stress index was calculated and the drought stress for corn grown in Hwaong, Saemangeum, and Yeongsan River reclaimed tidal land was predicted according to drying treatment. The vegetation index of corn did not decrease during the last 20 days of irrigation when soil moisture rapidly decreased, but decreased rapidly during the 20 days after irrigation. The reduction rate of the vegetation index according to the drying treatment was in the order of Saemangeum>Yeongsan River>Hwaong reclaimed tidal land, and normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI) decreased by approximately 50% in all reclaimed tidal lands, confirming that drought stress occurred due to the decrease in moisture content of the leaves. In addition, structure pigment chlorophyll index (SIPI) and photochemical reflectance index (PRI), which are calculated based on changes in light use efficiency and carotenoids, were reduced; drought stress caused a decrease in light use efficiency and an increase in carotenoid content. Therefore, vegetation index analysis was confirmed to be effective in evaluating and predicting drought stress in corn growing on reclaimed tidal land corn.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.405-409
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• 2018

최근 기후변화로 인해 기온, 강수량 등 농업에 직접적인 영향을 주는 환경요인의 변화가 급격하게 진행되고 있으며, 식량농업기구 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO)는 기후변화로 인해 전 세계적인 식량위기가 발생할 가능성이 크다고 경고하고 있다. 농업 시스템의 생산 능력을 확보하기 위해 수자원의 효율적인 공급 및 분배, 수확량 예측, 토지 특성 파악 등 농업 생산 제한요소에 대한 빠른 정보수집이 요구되고 있다. 재해관리 분야에서 원격탐사 기술은 재해 발생을 인지하고 발생지역의 재해 진행과 피해 정도를 신속하게 제공할 수 있다는 점에서 효용성이 높다. 또한 위성 영상을 이용할 경우 접근이 용이하지 못한 지역의 조사가 수월하며, 장기적인 변화관측이나 환경감시 등 광역적 접근이 가능하다. 최근 위성영상을 통한 다양한 신호의 데이터 취득 및 가공이 가능하게 됨에 따라 주기적이고 동일한 정확도로 지상자료의 획득이 가능하다는 측면에서 인공위성을 활용한 농업 분야에서의 가뭄 분석 연구의 필요성이 대두되었다. 위성영상 신호를 통해 농업 가뭄에 활용되고 있는 지표로는 정규식생지수 (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI) 및 식생상태지수 (Vegetation Condition Index, VCI), 식생가뭄반응지수(Vegetation Drought Response Index, VegDRI) 등이 있다. 잠재 증발산과 실제 증발산의 비를 이용한 위성영상기반의 가뭄지수인 Evaporative Stress Index (ESI)는 일반적으로 사용되는 가뭄지수인 표준강수지수(Standardized Precipitation Index, SPI), 파머가뭄심도지수 (Palmer Drought Severity Index, PDSI) 등과 비교하였을 때, 가뭄에 더 민감하고 빠른 반응을 보인다는 연구 결과로부터 짧은 기간의 급속하게 발생하는(rapid-onset) Flash drought의 가뭄판단지표로 활용되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 과거 우리나라에 발생했던 극심한 가뭄 사상을 대상으로 ESI의 가뭄분석을 통해 타 지표와의 차별성을 확인하고 농업 가뭄 모니터링의 새로운 지표로써 적용성을 검토하고자 한다.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.80-83
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• 2008

Diverse researches using vegetation index have been carried out to monitor spring droughts that have frequently occurred since 2000. The strength of the drought monitoring using vegetation index lies in that it can reflect characteristics of satellite images: large area coverage, cyclicity, and promptness. However, vegetation index involve uncertainly caused by diverse factors that affect vegetation stress. In this study, multi-temporal vegetation index is compared with the most representative meteorological drought indices like PSDI, SPI. Based on the results from analyses, usability of vegetation index as a tool of drought analysis is proposed.