• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.145-145
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• 2019

Groundwater and rainwater are the only sources of freshwater in small islands as many islands lack surface water sources. Groundwater occurring in the form of freshwater lens floating on denser seawater is highly dependent on natural recharge from rainfall. A sharp interface numerical model for regional and well scale modeling is selected to assess the sustainability of freshwater lens in the island of Tongatapu. In this study, 29 downscaled General Circulation Model(GCM) predictions are input to the recharge model based on water balance modelling. Three GCM predictions which represent wet, dry and medium conditions are selected for use in the groundwater flow model. Total freshwater volume and number of saltwater intruded wells are simulated under various climate scenarios with GCM predicted rainfall pattern, sea level rise and pumping. Simulations indicate that the sustainability of the freshwater lens is threatened by the frequent droughts which are predicted under all scenarios of recharge. The natural depletion of the lens during droughts and increase in water demands, leads to saltwater upconing under the pumping wells. Implementation of drought management measures is of utmost importance to ensure sustainability of freshwater lens in future.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.48 no.12
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• pp.1011-1021
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• 2015

This study aims to investigate droughts from the magnitude perspective based on the SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index) and the theory of runs applicable to quantitative analysis of drought in South Korea. In addition, the dry spell analysis was conducted on the drought history in the five major river basins of South Korea to obtain the magnitude, duration and severity of drought, and the quantitative evaluation has been made on historical droughts by estimating the return period using the SDF (Severity-Duration-Frequency) curve gained through drought frequency analysis. The analysis results showed that the return periods for droughts at the regional and major river basin scales were clearly identified. The return periods of severe drought that occurred around the major river basins in South Korea turn out to be mostly 30 to 50 years with the years of the worst drought in terms of severity being 1988 and 1994. In particular, South Korea experienced extremely severe droughts for two consecutive years during the period between 1994 and 1995. Drought in 2014 occurred in the Han River basin and was evaluated as the worst one in terms of severity and magnitude.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.57-69
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to identify distributional characteristics of autumn droughts in occurrence frequency and to analyze synoptic characteristics on the surface pressure fields and 500hPa levels for autumn droughts in Korea. The regional distributions of autumn droughts in occurrence frequency vary according to the monthly regional distributions of the precipitation variabilities in Korea. In september, the southwestern and the mid western parts of Korean Peninsula have high rate of drought frequency, while the eastern coast regions have low rate of it. It means that the regional distribution of the drought frequency in september indicates west-high and east-low pattern. In October, the regional distribution of the drought frequency shows low variations on regions, but in November the inland areas have low rate of drought frequency, whereas the coastal areas have high rate of it. Negative anomalies appear on the surface and 500hPa level, around Korean Peninsula during the drought period of early autumn. Positive height anomalies areas are extended from the Sea of Okhotsk to the central part of the North Pacific Ocean. It indicates that the occurrence frequencies of blocking high and ridge are high around the Sea of Okhotsk. When the pressure system, such as migratory anticyclone, stays around the Korean Peninsula, a drought occurs. In late autumn drought, the positive anomalies appear in the west and the negative anomalies in the east are generated, respectively and therefore, zonal wind is strong around Korean Peninsula. In consequence, occurrences of droughts in early autumn have a different mechanism from those of late autumn.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.477-484
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• 2021

Due to climate change, parts of Korea are experiencing large and small droughts every 2-3 years and extreme droughts every 7 years. Since most droughts occur mainly in areas where small water supply facilities in the tributaries or upstream are located, more research on technology for securing water in these areas is required. In this study, a drought evaluation using SPEI (Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index), SDI (Streamflow Drought Index), and WBDI (Water Budget-based Drought Index) was performed to investigate hydrological drought in the Mulrocheon watershed of Chuncheon, a vulnerable area in terms of water supply. As a result of calculating hydrological drought indices SPEI and SDI, examining each duration, it was confirmed that the common drought in 2014 did not recover and continued until 2015. In the hydrological drought index evaluation result by WBDI, a very severe drought condition was observed in the spring of 2015 following 2014, and that drought was the most severe at -1.94 in November 2017. As a result of deriving a SDF (Severity-Duration-Frequency) curve through frequency analysis by duration using the drought index calculated on a monthly basis from 2003 to 2019 (17 years), most droughts in the Mulrocheon watershed were found to have a return period of less than 10 years, but droughts that occurred in 2014, 2015, and 2019 were found to cover more than 20 years, respectively.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.27-43
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• 2021

Since climate factors, such as precipitation, temperature, etc., show repeated patterns every year, it can be said that future changes can be predicted by analyzing past climate data. As with groundwater, seasonal variations predominate. Therefore, when a drought occurs, the groundwater level is also lowered. Thus, a change in the groundwater level can represent a drought. Like precipitation, groundwater level changes also have a high correlation with drought, so many researchers use Standard Groundwater Level Index (SGI) to which the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) method is applied to evaluate the severity of droughts and predict drought trends. However, due to the strong interferences caused by the recent increase in groundwater use, it is difficult to represent the droughts of regions or entire watersheds by only using groundwater level change data using the SPI or SGI methods, which analyze data from one representative observation station. Therefore, if the long-term groundwater level changes of all the provinces of a watershed are analyzed, the overall trend can be shown even if there is use interference. Thus, future groundwater level changes and droughts can be more accurately predicted. Therefore, in this study, it was confirmed that the groundwater level changes in the last 5 years compared with the monthly average groundwater level changes of the monitoring wells installed before 2015 appeared similar to the drought occurrence pattern. As a result of analyzing the correlation with the water storage yields of 3,423 agricultural reservoirs that do not immediately open their sluice gates in the cases of droughts or floods, it was confirmed that the correlation was higher than 56% in the natural state. Therefore, it was concluded that it is possible to re-evaluate agricultural droughts through long-term groundwater level change analyses.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.85-98
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• 2010

The natural hazards such as droughts, floods and frost injuries, and their relationships with the social unrest phenomena such as years of famine, smallpox and revolutions during the Medieval times(AD 936~1391) in Korea are compared and analyzed based on the History of Goryeo containing astronomical weather and climate events during the Goryeo Dynasty. Among the natural hazards during the Goryeo Dynasty, the droughts with a period of 4~5 years on average are recorded most frequently. By time series analysis, the most frequency of droughts can be found in AD 286~335, AD 786~835 and AD 1261~1320 during the Ancient and Medieval times. It is suggested that three cycles of the droughts during approximately 1,500 years of the Ancient and Medieval times are recognized and they had happened with the time intervals of approximately 500 years. The frequency of droughts increased in the late Goryeo Dynasty is consistent with those of the social chaos factors such as years of famines, smallpox and revolutions. These records suggest that the natural hazard such as years of famines was one of the most important factors influencing on the collapse of the Goryeo Dynasty, agrarian country.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1687-1691
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• 1969

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 1995

The assessment for a degree of drought has been carried out based on the soil moisture index in Korea. The soil moisture index(Im) was calculated assuming of constant evapotranspiration until wilting point as Im = w2/wf $.$100. The soil moisture content(W2) at the final of a period is obtained from W2 : Pe + Wl - E, here the effective precipitation amount is Pe, evapotranspiration E, and the soil moisture content at the beginning of a period is Wl. The filed capacity(Wf), as a mean value of fine sandy loams, was reduced to 92 mm/ft when we accept the wilting point and the available soil moisture content of 42 mm/ft, respectively. The drought begins in Korea when the soil moisture index drops to less than 50%. The value coincides the isoline of 11 or more consecutive days without measureable precipitation. The soil moisture index frequently drops in the northern part of Youngnam area and Honam area so that both areas are well known as the areas of drought. Key word : Droughts, Soil Moisture Index.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.50-50
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• 2018

As the frequency of drought due to climate change is increasing and the severity of drought becomes severe, it is urgent to prepare measures against extreme drought. Despite the significant impacts of drought on the coupled human-environment system, we have not fully understood the consequences of extreme droughts affecting all parts of the environment and our communities, and there is no system to assess environmental droughts quantitatively. Even if a drought disaster occurs on the same scale, the severity of the drought depends on the vulnerability of the region. Therefore, this study proposes environmental drought assessment based on water quality vulnerability to extreme drought for the resilient proactive response.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.983-989
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• 2018

The real-time monitoring of surface vegetation is essential for the management of droughts, vegetation growth, and water resources. The availability of land cover maps based on remotely collected data makes the monitoring of surface vegetation easier. The vegetation index in an area is likely to be proportional to meteorological elements there such as air temperature and precipitation. This study investigated relationship between vegetation index based on Moderate Resolution Image Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and ground-measured meteorological elements at the Yongdam catchment station. To do this, 16-day averaged data were used. It was found that the vegetation index is well correlated to air temperature but poorly correlated to precipitation. The study provides some intuition and guidelines for the study of the droughts and ecologies in the future.