• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.429-439
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• 2005

The propose of this study is to identify distributional characteristics of winter droughts through occurrence frequencies and to analyze synoptic characteristics on the sea level pressure fields and 500hPa levels in Korea. The regional distributions of winter droughts in occurrence frequency vary according to the monthly regional distributions of the variabilities of precipitation in Korea. In January and December, the eastern parts of Korea where the variabilities of precipitation show high, have high rate of drought frequencies, while the western parts have low rate of it. It means that the regional distribution of the drought frequencies in January and December shows the east-high and west-low pattern, In February the frequencies show the north-high and south-low pattern. In the distributions of the sea-level pressure and 500hPa level height anomalies, the positive anomalies appear around Korean Peninsula and Siberian high area, the negative anomalies on the Aleutian low area and the western parts of North Pacific Ocean during the drought period in January and February. The droughts appear when the inflow of warm and humid air from the south eastern parts blocked by the prevailing pressure patterns of the west-high and east-low. Therefore, the zonal wind of the Korean Peninsula is strong. The droughts of December reflect not only low frequencies of cyclone occurrence, also small inflow of warm and humid air from the southern parts stemming from positive anomalies over whole middle latitude of eastern parts of Asia including Korean Peninsula.

• Atmosphere
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.249-266
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• 2008

The tendencies for teleconnection with a time lag and other characteristics of Korean summer droughts have been investigated and some clues to predict the drought occurrences several months before have been found. First, the May and June droughts in Korea are simultaneous with those over the northwestern part of Korea owing to the relation with the baroclinic wave. However, the July and August droughts occur over the mid-latitudes or southern part of Korea owing to the relation with the Changma front. Second, several months before the MJJA droughts in Korea, it is found that the effective drought index (EDI) over particular areas (hereafter, referred to as the omen areas) is large. Thailand, Carolina Island, Mongolia, and Central Bengal Bay were selected as the omen areas. Third, when the monthly minimum EDI (MME) of the omen area in winter is more than 0.7, it signifies that the precipitation is above normal, Korea has almost always experienced a summer drought. However, the droughts occurring with this type of relationship only represent half of the MJJA droughts in Korea. Fourth, the relationships between the Korean drought and the precipitation over omen areas in low latitudes are not valid over all the eight precipitation areas in Korea, but only over Areas I, II, and III, where heavy rains occur during spring and summer.

• 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 Animal Science and Technology
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• v.63 no.1
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• pp.77-90
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• 2021

This study aimed to assess the impact of abnormal climate events on the production of Italian ryegrass (IRG), such as autumn low-temperature, severe winter cold and spring droughts in the central inland, southern inland and southern coastal regions. Seasonal climatic variables, including temperature, precipitation, wind speed, relative humidity, and sunshine duration, were used to set the abnormal climate events using principal component analysis, and the abnormal climate events were distinguished from normal using Euclidean-distance cluster analysis. Furthermore, to estimate the impact caused by abnormal climate events, the dry matter yield (DMY) of IRG between abnormal and normal climate events was compared using a t-test with 5% significance level. As a result, the impact to the DMY of IRG by abnormal climate events in the central inland of Korea was significantly large in order of severe winter cold, spring drought, and autumn low-temperature. In the southern inland regions, severe winter cold was also the most serious abnormal event. These results indicate that the severe cold is critical to IRG in inland regions. Meanwhile, in the southern coastal regions, where severe cold weather is rare, the spring drought was the most serious abnormal climate event. In particular, since 2005, the frequency of spring droughts has tended to increase. In consideration of the trend and frequency of spring drought events, it is likely that drought becomes a NEW NORMAL during spring in Korea. This study was carried out to assess the impact of seasonal abnormal climate events on the DMY of IRG, and it can be helpful to make a guideline for its vulnerability.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.113-121
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• 2021

The occurrence mechanisms of heatwave have been conventionally studied at a synoptic scale. However, the implications of precedent droughts on the following up heatwave occurrences have not been elucidated and are important to address the complex causal mechanisms of heatwaves. Therefore, this study evaluated the causality and implication of the seasonally antecedent droughts to summer heatwaves that occurred for 46 years since 1974 using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The resulting contribution of winter (spring and summer) droughts to summer heatwaves for Seoul-Gyeonggi, Gangwon, and Chungcheong provinces were 37 % (29 % and 22 %), 21 % (18 % and 29 %), and 17 % (8 % and 38 %), respectively. This is due to the regional variability of seasonal drought impacts. Furthermore, Gangwon and Chungcheong provinces, which have a higher level of impacts of summer droughts to summer heatwaves, are more likely to be exposed to the compound drought-heatwave damages compared to Seoul-Gyeonggi province, which has relatively a low-level impact of summer drought.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.523-534
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• 2021

Meteorological drought originates from a precipitation deficiency and propagates to agricultural and hydrological droughts through the hydrological cycle. Comparing with the meteorological drought, agricultural and hydrological droughts have more direct impacts on human society. Thus, understanding how meteorological drought evolves to agricultural and hydrological droughts is necessary for efficient drought preparedness and response. In this study, meteorological and hydrological droughts were defined based on the observed precipitation and the synthesized streamflow by the land surface model. The Bayesian network model was applied for probabilistic analysis of the propagation relationship between meteorological and hydrological droughts. The copula function was used to estimate the joint probability in the Bayesian network. The results indicated that the propagation probabilities from the moderate and extreme meteorological droughts were ranged from 0.41 to 0.63 and from 0.83 to 0.98, respectively. In addition, the propagation probabilities were highest in autumn (0.71 ~ 0.89) and lowest in winter (0.41 ~ 0.62). The propagation probability increases as the meteorological drought evolved from summer to autumn, and the severe hydrological drought could be prevented by appropriate mitigation during that time.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.209-217
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• 2021

Although forest fires are more often triggered by artificial causes than by natural causes, the combustion conditions that spread forest fire damage over a large area are affected by natural phenomena. Therefore, using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), which can analyze the dependent and causal relationships between various factors, this study evaluated the causal relationships and relative influences between forest fire, weather, and drought, taking Gangwon Province as our sample region. The results indicated that the impact of drought on forest fires was 27 % and that of the weather was 38 %. In addition, forest fires in spring accounted for about 60 % of total forest fires. This indicatesthat along with meteorological factors, the autumn and winter droughts in the previous year affected forest fires. In assessing the risk of forest fires, if severe meteorological droughts occur in autumn and winter, the probability of forest fires may increase in the spring of the following year.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Grassland and Forage Science
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.103-108
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• 2023

Due to the recent impact of global warming, heavy rainfall and droughts have been occurring regardless of the season, affecting the growth of Italian ryegrass (IRG), a winter forage crop. Particularly, delayed sowing due to frequent heavy rainfall or autumn droughts leads to poor growth and reduced winter survival rates. Therefore, techniques to improve yield through additional sowing in spring have been implemented. In this study, the growth of IRG sown in Spring and Autumn was compared and analyzed using vegetation indices during the months of April and May. Spectral data was collected using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) equipped with a hyperspectral sensor, and the following vegetation indices were utilized: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index; NDVI, Normalized Difference Red Edge Index; NDRE (I), Chlorophyll Index, Red Green Ratio Index; RGRI, Enhanced Vegetation Index; EVI and Carotenoid Reflectance Index 1; CRI1. Indices related to chlorophyll concentration exhibited similar trends. RGRI of IRG sown in autumn increased during the experimental period, while IRG sown in spring showed a decreasing trend. The results of RGRI in IRG indicated differences in optical characteristics by sowing seasons compared to the other vegetation indices. Our findings showed that the timing of sowing influences the optical growth characteristics of crops by the results of various vegetation indices presented in this study. Further research, including the development of optimal vegetation indices related to IRG growth, is necessary in the future.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.804-815
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• 2006

Meteorologists define a drought as a period of common dry weather. This may sound straightforward, but it is not so in reality. In this study, we attempted to identify meteorological drought conditions over South Korea. To evaluate the temporal and spatial variability of drought, we calculated two commonly used drought indices, the percent of normal precipitation (PNP) and the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) calculated from fifty-eight meteorological stations below the Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA). The yearly precipitation has been growing gradually, and the amplitude between maximum and minimum also grow more explicitly from 1960's. According to the analysis of percentile anomaly of monthly precipitation, major drought duration was $1927{\sim}1929,\;1937{\sim}1939,\;1942{\sim}1944,\;1967{\sim}1968,\;1976{\sim}1977,\;1982{\sim}1983,\;1988,\;and\;1994{\sim}1995$. The severe drought occurred most frequently in Mokpo, Daegu, Jeonju, Busan, and Gangneung; it tended to occur more frequently in south sector than in mid sector of Korea and in south west sector than in south east sector. According to the analysis of seasonal distribution, extreme droughts occurred frequently in winter at Seoul, Gangneung, Jeonju, Daegu, and Busan. Severe droughts in summer were formed frequently at Seoul, Gangneung, and Mokpo, while that for spring at Jeonju, Daegu, and Busan. The results of PDSI distribution for the $1994{\sim}1995$ drought period were one of the most severe and widely spreaded droughts; it occurred most frequently in the south sector of South Korea. The comparison of time series between PDSI and Normal Percent showed that they exhibit a strong compatibility for the entire study period; it implies that both drought indices are useful method to indicate drought severity.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.2902-2909
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• 2011

Regional torrential rains in summer this year due to abnormal climate changes compared to last year, have been frequent. Since Typhoon Rusa and Typhoon Maemi resulted in major damage to railroad facilities in 2002 and 2003 consecutively, problems with abnormal climate changes became a global problem including railroad and floods and droughts around the globe, heavy snow and winter warming have been repeated until now. Serious problem of radiation leakage in Fukushima nuclear power plant by the Tsunami due to 9.0-scale earthquake, this year in March, in northeastern Japan happened, and has given an impact on the life of Japanese citizens and industries and has also influenced on Korean. This shows how important to secure and to protect major national facilities including railroad structures to natural disasters such as earthquake. Therefore, we will briefly discuss about technologies for securing and protecting railroad structures to earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters.