• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.197-210
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• 1999

This study examines the duration and severity of droughts by the use of stochastic process considerations. The key annual flow statistics are used to estimate the related statistics of drought probability distributions for various combinations of return period and water demand. This study efforts initially focused on analyzing all the nation streamgage records that were judged to meet certain selection criteria, including those of record length, record quality. These analyses resulted in the determination of those annual flow statistics necessary to define the behavior of drought sequences for the selected streams. Using prior research results, the actual or estimated flow statistics are related to the probability distributions of maximum drought events, through the application of the theory of runs. This has resulted in assigning return periods to drought events at gaged locations, and permits an assessment of the probabilities of observed historical drought within the nation.

• 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 Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.145-153
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• 2016

Using monthly rainfalls, this study investigated outliers of annual and/or seasonal rainfall for quantitative assessment of historical droughts in Korea. Based on the analysis of annual rainfall, Icheon, Geochang, Jeongeup, Suncheon and Jangheung gaging stations were selected to represent the major river basins, because they had most frequent dry years. The overall results indicated that the years of 1988 and 1994 were the worst dry years. Although the 2001 drought was not severe, it resulted in typical agricultural drought damage mainly in Seomjin and Yeongsan river basin due to the lack of agricultural water. On the other hand, the droughts of 1981-1982 and 1994-1995 were long term nation wide droughts that lasted more than two years resulting in extensive drought damages to parts of the country.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2023.05a
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• pp.166-166
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• 2023

Compound hazards (CHs) are two or more extreme climate events combined which occur simultaneously in the same region at the same time. Compared to individual hazards, the combination of hazards that cause CHs can result in greater economic losses and deaths. While several extreme climate events have been recorded across Asia for the past decades, many studies have only focused on a single hazard. In this study, we assess the spatiotemporal pattern of dry compound hazards which includes drought, heatwave, fire and wind across Asia for the last 42 years (1980-2021) using the historical data from ERA5 Reanalysis dataset. We utilize a daily spatial data of each climate event to assess the occurrence of such compound hazards on a daily basis. Heatwave, fire and wind hazard occurrences are analyzed using daily percentile-based thresholds while a pre-defined threshold for SPI is applied for drought occurrence. Then, the occurrence of each type of compound hazard is taken from overlapping the map of daily occurrences of a single hazard. Lastly, a multivariate assessment are conducted to quantify the occurrence frequency, hotspots and trends of each type of compound hazard across Asia. By conducting a multivariate analysis of the occurrence of these compound hazards, we identify the relationships and interactions in dry compound hazards including droughts, heatwaves, fires, and winds, ultimately leading to better-informed decisions and strategies in the natural risk management.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.36 no.3 s.134
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• pp.375-384
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• 2003

Severe drought tends to occur in almost event five years in Korea. Drought responses have been well operated in close collaboration with the central, local government and the water management authorities on the institutional framework. However, the responses are usually post-activities to a drought event. The responses often face difficulties in operating and managing process due to an absence of a drought monitoring system and drought triggers. The objective of this study is to set up drought triggers through a time-spatial interpretation of drought index and the government responses during historical drought events. Drought triggers are divided into four categories: advisory, watch, warning and emergency stage. The range and drought-impacted area of an each stage in triggers have been addressed using drought index. Furthermore, a web-based drought monitoring system is illustrated.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.5_2
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• pp.781-791
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• 2022

It is crucial to provide forest fire risk forecast information to minimize forest fire-related losses. In this research, forecast models of forest fire risk at a mid-range (with lead times up to 7 days) scale were developed considering past, present and future conditions (i.e., forest fire risk, drought, and weather) through random forest machine learning over South Korea. The models were developed using weather forecast data from the Global Data Assessment and Prediction System, historical and current Fire Risk Index (FRI) information, and environmental factors (i.e., elevation, forest fire hazard index, and drought index). Three schemes were examined: scheme 1 using historical values of FRI and drought index, scheme 2 using historical values of FRI only, and scheme 3 using the temporal patterns of FRI and drought index. The models showed high accuracy (Pearson correlation coefficient >0.8, relative root mean square error <10%), regardless of the lead times, resulting in a good agreement with actual forest fire events. The use of the historical FRI itself as an input variable rather than the trend of the historical FRI produced more accurate results, regardless of the drought index used.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.44 no.8
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• pp.667-681
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• 2011

The objective of this study is to evaluate the applicability of a Land Surface Model (LSM) for drought analysis in Korea. For evaluating the applicability of the model, the model was calibrated on several upper dam site watersheds and the hydrological components (runoff and soil moisture) were simulated over the whole South Korea at grid basis. After converting daily series of runoff and soil moisture data to accumulated time series (3, 6, 12 months), drought indices such as SRI and SSI are calculated through frequency analysis and standardization of accumulated probability. For evaluating the drought indices, past drought events are investigated and drought indices including SPI and PDSI are used for comparative analysis. Temporal and spatial analysis of the drought indices in addition to hydrologic component analysis are performed to evaluate the reproducibility of drought severity as well as relieving of drought. It can be concluded that the proposed indices obtained from the LSM model show good performance to reflect the historical drought events for both spatially and temporally. From this point of view, the LSM can be useful for drought management. It leads to the conclusion that these indices are applicable to domestic drought and water management.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.275-282
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• 2016

The objective of this study is to propose a new method to determine the drought event and the design drought severity. In order to define a drought event from precipitation data, theory of run was applied with the cumulative rainfall deficit. When we have a large amount of rainfall over the threshold level, in this study, we compare with the previous cumulative rainfall deficit to determine whether the drought is relieved or not. The recurrence characteristics of the drought severity on the specific duration was analyzed by the conditional bivariate copula function and confidence intervals were estimated to quantify uncertainties. The methodology was applied to Seoul station with the historical dataset (1909~2015). It was observed that the past droughts considered as extreme hydrological events had from 10 to 50 years of return period. On the other hand, the current on-going drought event started from 2013 showed the significantly higher return period. It is expected that the result of this study may be utilized as the reliable criteria based on the concept of return period for the drought contingency plan.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.45 no.10
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• pp.983-995
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• 2012

In this study, it was intended to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution of historical drought events occurred in Korea by way of drought frequency analysis using SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index), and Drought spell was executed to estimate drought frequency as per drought severity and regions. Also, SDF (severity-duration-frequency) curves were prepared per each weather stations to estimate spatial distribution characteristics for the severe drought areas of Korea, and Potential Drought Hazard Map was prepared based on the derived SDF curves. Drought frequency analysis per drought stage revealed that severe drought as well as extreme drought frequency were prominently high at Geum River, Nakdong River, and Seomjin River basin as can be seen from SDF curves, and drought severity was found as severer per each drought return period in the data located at Geum River, Nakdong River, and Seomjin River basins as compared with that of Seoul weather station at Han River basin. In the Potential Drought Hazard Map, it showed that Geum River, Seomjin River, and Yeongsan River basins were drought vulnerable areas as compared to upper streams of Nakdong River basin and Han River basin, and showed similar result in drought frequency per drought stage. Drought was occurred frequently during spring seasons with tendency of frequent short drought spell as indicated in Potential Drought Hazard Map of different season.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.195-207
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• 2024

This study selected major drought events that occurred in the Jeonnam region from 1991 to 2023, examining both meteorological and hydrological drought occurrence mechanisms. The daily drought index was calculated using rainfall and dam storage as input data, and the drought propagation characteristics from meteorological drought to hydrological drought were analyzed. The characteristics of the 2022-23 drought, which recently occurred in the Jeonnam region and caused serious damage, were evaluated. Compared to historical droughts, the duration of the hydrological drought for 2022-2023 lasted 334 days, the second longest after 2017-2018, the drought severity was evaluated as the most severe at -1.76. As a result of a linked analysis of SPI (StandQardized Precipitation Index), and SRSI (Standardized Reservoir Storage Index), it is possible to suggest a proactive utilization for SPI(6) to respond to hydrological drought. Furthermore, by confirming the similarity between SRSI and SPI(12) in long-term drought monitoring, the applicability of SPI(12) to hydrological drought monitoring in ungauged basins was also confirmed. Through this study, it was confirmed that the long-term dryness that occurs during the summer rainy season can transition into a serious level of hydrological drought. Therefore, for preemptive drought response, it is necessary to use real-time monitoring results of various drought indices and understand the propagation phenomenon from meteorological-agricultural-hydrological drought to secure a sufficient drought response period.