• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.6_3
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• pp.1285-1298
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• 2019

Drought is one of the factors that can cause wildfires. Drought is related to not only the occurrence of wildfires but also their frequency, extent and severity. In South Korea, most wildfires occur in dry seasons (i.e. spring and autumn), which are highly correlated to drought events. In this study, we examined the relationship between wildfire occurrence and drought factors, and developed satellite-based new drought indices for assessing wildfire risk over South Korea. Drought factors used in this study were high-resolution downscaled soil moisture, Normalized Different Water Index (NDWI), Normalized Multi-band Drought Index (NMDI), Normalized Different Drought Index (NDDI), Temperature Condition Index (TCI), Precipitation Condition Index (PCI) and Vegetation Condition Index (VCI). Drought indices were then proposed through weighted linear combination and one-class support vector machine (One-class SVM) using the drought factors. We found that most drought factors, in particular, soil moisture, NDWI, and PCI were linked well to wildfire occurrence. The validation results using wildfire cases in 2018 showed that all five linear combinations produced consistently good performance (> 88% in occurrence match). In particular, the combination of soil moisture and NDWI, and the combination of soil moisture, NDWI, and precipitation were found to be appropriate for representing wildfire risk.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.107-119
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• 2020

This study analyzed past drought characteristics based on the observed rainfall data and performed a long-term outlook for future extreme droughts using Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (RCP 8.5) climate change scenarios. Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) used duration of 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months, a meteorological drought index, was applied for quantitative drought analysis. A single long-term time series was constructed by combining daily rainfall observation data and RCP scenario. The constructed data was used as SPI input factors for each different duration. For the analysis of meteorological drought observed relatively long-term since 1954 in Korea, 12 rainfall stations were selected and applied 10 general circulation models (GCM) at the same point. In order to analyze drought characteristics according to climate change, trend analysis and clustering were performed. For non-stationary frequency analysis using sampling technique, we adopted the technique DEMC that combines Bayesian-based differential evolution ("DE") and Markov chain Monte Carlo ("MCMC"). A non-stationary drought frequency analysis was used to derive Severity-Duration-Frequency (SDF) curves for the 12 locations. A quantitative outlook for future droughts was carried out by deriving SDF curves with long-term hydrologic data assuming non-stationarity, and by quantitatively identifying potential drought risks. As a result of performing cluster analysis to identify the spatial characteristics, it was analyzed that there is a high risk of drought in the future in Jeonju, Gwangju, Yeosun, Mokpo, and Chupyeongryeong except Jeju corresponding to Zone 1-2, 2, and 3-2. They could be efficiently utilized in future drought management policies.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.681-700
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• 2008

In this study, the spatial and temporal patterns of changes in means and extreme events of temperature and precipitation across the Republic of Korea over the last 35 years (1973-2007) are examined. Over the study period, meteorological winter (December-February) mean minimum (maximum) temperature has increased by $+0.54^{\circ}C$/decade ($+0.6^{\circ}C$/decade), while there have been no significant changes in meteorological summer (June-August) mean temperatures. According to analyses of upper or lower $10^{th}$ percentile-based extreme temperature indices, the annual frequency of cool nights (days) has decreased by -9.2 days/decade (-3.3 days/decade), while the annual frequency of warm nights (days) has increased by +4.9 days/decade (+6.8 days/decade). In contrast, the increase rates of summer warm nights (+8.0 days/$^{\circ}C$) and days (+6.6 days/$^{\circ}C$) relative to changes in summer means minimum and maximum temperatures means are greater than the decreasing rates of winter nights (-5.2 days/$^{\circ}C$) and days (-4.3 days/$^{\circ}C$) relative to changes in winter temperatures. These results demonstrate that seasonal and diurnal asymmetric changes in extreme temperature events have occurred. Moreover, annual total precipitation has increased by 85.5 mm/decade particularly in July and August, which led to the shift of a bimodal behavior of summer precipitation into a multi-modal structure. These changes have resulted from the intensification of heavy rainfall events above 40mm in recent decades, and spatially the statistically-significant increases in these heavy rainfall events are observed around the Taebaek mountain region.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.65-74
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• 2013

The natural disaster occurrences and the loss of lives caused by the steep-slope failures in Korea were investigated in this study. The investigation includes the frequency rate of the steep-slope failures with respect to the characteristics of precipitation, underlying bedrock, and weathered soils. Analysis on the problems in the existing estimation methods of steep-slope failure was also undertaken, and a new model using unsaturated infinite slope stability was developed for the better slope failure estimation. The slope analyses by the newly developed model were performed considering unsaturated infinite slope, the gradient of slope, and hydro/mechanical properties of soils. Steep-slope failure estimation criterion is proposed based on the analysis results. In addition, the precipitation amount corresponding to warning stages against steep-slope failure is provided as an equation of Intensity-Duration criterion.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2023.05a
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• pp.178-178
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• 2023

Drought and flooding have historically coexisted in Korea, occurring at different times and with varying cycles and trends. The drought indicators measured were (PDSI), (SPI), and (SPEI) in order to statistically analyze the annual or periodic drought occurrence and objectively evaluate statistical characteristics such as the periodicity, tendency, and frequency of occurrence of droughts in the Doam watershed. To compute potential evapotranspiration (PET), both Thornthwaite (Thor) and Penman-Monteith (PM) parameterizations were considered, and the differences between the two PET estimators were analyzed. Hence, SPIs 3 and SPIs 6 revealed a tendency to worsen drought in the spring and winter and a tendency to alleviate drought in the summer in the study area. The seasonal variability trend did not occur in the SPIs 12 and PDSI, as it did in the drought index over a short period. As a result of the drought trend study, the drought from winter to spring gets more severe, in addition to the duration of the drought, although the periodicity of the recurrence of the drought ranged from 3 years to 6 years at the longest, indicating that SPIs 3 showed a brief time of around 1 year. SPIs 6 and SPIs 12 had a term of 4 to 6 years, and PDSI had a period of roughly 6 years. Based on the indicators of the PDSI, SPI, and SPEI, the drought severity increases under climate change conditions with the decrease in precipitation and increased water demand as a consequence of the temperature increase. Therefore, our findings show that national and practical measures are needed for both winter and spring droughts, which happen every year, as well as large-scale and extreme droughts, which happen every six years.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.66 no.4
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• pp.1-15
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• 2024

In recent years, climate change has been responsible for unusual weather patterns on a global scale. Droughts, natural disasters triggered by insufficient rainfall, can inflict significant social and economic consequences on the entire agricultural sector due to their widespread occurrence and the challenge in accurately predicting their onset. The frequency of drought occurrences in South Korea has been rapidly increasing since 2000, with notably severe droughts hitting regions such as Incheon, Gyeonggi, Gangwon, Chungbuk, and Gyeongbuk in 2015, resulting in significant agricultural and social damage. To prepare for future drought occurrences resulting from climate change, it is essential to develop long-term drought predictions and implement corresponding measures for areas prone to drought. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report outlines a climate change scenario under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), which integrates projected future socio-economic changes and climate change mitigation efforts derived from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6). SSPs encompass a range of factors including demographics, economic development, ecosystems, institutions, technological advancements, and policy frameworks. In this study, various drought indices were calculated using SSP scenarios derived from 18 CMIP6 global climate models. The SSP5-8.5 scenario was employed as the climate change scenario, and meteorological drought indices such as the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Self-Calibrating Effective Drought Index (scEDI), and Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) were utilized to analyze the prediction and variability of future drought occurrences in South Korea.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.6B
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• pp.599-606
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• 2010

Due to the short period of precipitation data in Korea, the uncertainty of drought analysis is inevitable from a point frequency analysis. So it is desired to introduce a regional drought frequency analysis. This study first extracted drought characteristics from 3-month and 12-month moving average rainfalls which represent short and long-term droughts, respectively. Then, the homogeneous regions were distinguished by performing a principal component analysis and cluster analysis. The Korean peninsula was classified into five regions based on drought characteristics. Finally, this study applied the bivariate frequency analysis using a kernel density function to quantify the regionalized drought characteristics. Based on the bivariate drought frequency curves, the drought severities of five regions were evaluated for durations of 2, 5, 10, and 20 months, and return periods of 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 years. As a result, the largest severity of drought was occurred in the Lower Geum River basin, in the Youngsan River basin, and over in the southern coast of Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2020.06a
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• pp.166-166
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• 2020

Recently, As the frequency of localized heavy rains increases, the use of high-resolution radar data is increasing. The produced radar rainfall has still gaps of spatial and temporal compared to gauge observation rainfall, and in many studies, various statistical techniques are performed for correct rainfall. In this study, the precipitation correction of the S-band Dual Polarization radar in use in the flood forecast was performed using the ConvAE algorithm, one of the Convolutional Neural Network. The ConvAE model was trained based on radar data sets having a 10-min temporal resolution: radar rainfall data, gauge rainfall data for 790minutes(July 2017 in Cheongju flood event). As a result of the validation of corrected radar rainfall were reduced gaps compared to gauge rainfall and the spatial correction was also performed. Therefore, it is judged that the corrected radar rainfall using ConvAE will increase the reliability of the gridded rainfall data used in various physically-based distributed hydrodynamic models.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.1-11
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• 2022

Recently, climate change has been regarded as a major cause of large-scale forest fires worldwide, and there is concern that more frequent and severe forest fires will occur due to the level of greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, the daily Keetch and Byram Drought Index (KBDI) of the Baekdudaegan in Chungcheong region including Sobaeksan, Songnisan, and Woraksan National Parks were calculated to assess effect of climate change on the forest fire potential- severity of annual maximum KBDI and frequency of high KBDI days. The present (2000~2019) and future KBDI(2021~2040, 2041~2060, 2081~2090) were calculated based on the meteorological observation and the ensemble regional climate model of the SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios with a spatial resolution of 1-km provided by Korea Meteorological Administration(KMA). Under the SSP5-8.5 scenario, 6.5℃ increase and 14% precipitation increase are expected at the end of the 21st century. The severity of maximum daily KBDI increases by 48% (+50mm), and the frequency of high KBDI days (> 100 KBDI) increases more than 100 days, which means the high potential for serious forest fires. The analysis results showed that Songnisan National Park has the highest potential for forest fire risk and will continue to be high in intensity and frequency in the future. It is expected that the forest vulnerability of the Baekdudaegan in the Chungcheong region will greatly increase and the difficulty in preventing and suppressing forest fires will increase as the abundance of combustible materials increases along with climate changes.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.159-167
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• 2005

Turbulent fluxes of sensible heat and latent heat were analyzed at King Sejong station in the austral summer of 2002 (December) and 2003 (January and February). Monthly mean air temperatures of January and February (2.2oC) were similar to those averaged over 1988 to 2001. Precipitation was less in January and greater in February than those averaged over last 14 years. In December of 2002 and January, there was precipitation primarily when easterly wind blew usually. The frequency of snowfall was equal to or larger than that of rainfall. In the mean while, precipitation primarily in forms of rainfall occurred with westerly wind in February. In addition, while for easterly wind, temperature and humidity was low, temperature and humidity were high in case of westerly wind. Based on flux footprint, measured flux mainly came from within 300 m with maximum of 40 m upwind, indicating the insignificant role of the sea around the study site. Half-hourly downward short wave radiation amounted up to ∼ 1000 Wm-2 and net radiation ranged from -50 to 600 Wm-2. Half-hourly sensible heat flux was positive at daytime with maximum of ∼ 400 Wm-2, except the 27th and 28th in February of 2003 when it was negative all day despite of positive net radiation at short daytime. Latent heat flux was positive with maximum of ∼ 130 Wm-2. Depending on wind direction, the partitioning of net radiation into the sum of sensible heat flux and latent heat flux was larger than 0.8, indicating the strong source of the land surface for the atmospheric heating. The daytime averaged Bowen ratio (=sensible heat flux /latent heat flux) was significantly greater than 1, indicating that sensible heat flux was the main source to heat the atmosphere over the site.