• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.93-102
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• 1996

The Korean Peninsula is located on the east coast of monsoon Asia of the midlatitude, where the Pacific polar front moves. As a result variations of spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation occur. A great variation of precipitation during the summer months created frequent droughts and floods. The purpose of this study is to identify distributional characteristics and to analyze synopic characteristics of summer droughts in Korea. The research methods used are ; (1) to identify droughts based on the anomaly of monthly precipitation during summer of 1994. (2) to analyze correlations between drought and weather systems by using the calender of rain days. (3) to compare a synoptic mechanism of summer droughts with that of typical normal summer. The characteristics of summer droughts of 1994 may be summarized as follows ; 1) While most regions were affected by the droughts some regions displayed specific characteristics. The southern part of the Korean Peninsula was severely affected during the month of June. August droughts severely affected east part of the Sobek Mountains, thus showing that the droughts of June and August are highly localized. 2) In the pressure anomaly of surface field. the positive anomaly appears in June around Korean Peninsula, but in July when all parts of the South Korea were under severe droughts, the anomaly changes and becomes negative. 3) Extracyclones occurred less frequently in the summer of 1994. Those that did occur were located in areas far off the Korean Peninsula having little consequences on the drought patterns. 4) The trough of westerly wave at 500hPa height patterns in June is located far from the eastern sea of Korean Peninsula, but in July and August Korean Peninsula belongs to ridge of westerly wave. 5) In June the positive height anomaly at 500hPa surface appears zonally from Siberia to the western Parts of North Pacific Ocean, and in July and August, the strong positive anomaly appears around Korean Peninsula. As a result the zonal index of westerlies at during each month of summer in Korean sector has a large value, which in turn implies that drought will prevails when zonal flow is strong.

• 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.

• 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.

• Atmosphere
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.279-286
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• 2008

In the tropical western Pacific (especially, west of 135oE, including South China Sea and the Philippines), during boreal summer, it was found that a strong correlation exists between the tropical cyclone activity and the drought conditions in Korea. During the summer drought, firstly, there were strong ascending flows over the tropical western Pacific with more tropical cyclone genesis, and to compensate for this, descending flows develop in the mid-latitudes, thereby causing drought; in other words, a secondary circulation is formed between the tropical western Pacific and mid-latitudes of East Asia. Secondly, the developments of both the subtropical western Pacific high and the Manchurian low are suppressed. As a result, both the land-sea pressure gradient and the southerly flow from low-latitudes to Korean area are also weakened, which reduces approaches of tropical cyclones to this area despite the high frequency of their geneses.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.197-206
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• 2009

Benthic macroinvertebrate communities were collected from six different sites in the Dobong Stream in Seoul, Korea to investigate spatial and temporal changes in benthic macroinvertebrate communities in response to natural disturbances such as floods and droughts. We collected samples monthly or semimonthly with a Surber net ($30cm{\times}30cm$), and measured environmental factors, including stream temperature, discharge, width, conductivity, dissolved oxygen and pH at each sampling site. Benthic macro invertebrates were strongly affected by floods as well as droughts. In addition, benthic macroinvertebrate communities displayed different responses to the onset of the rainy season in summer 2006 and 2007, apparently due to differences in the intensity and amount of precipitation. Chironomids were particularly sensitive to heavy rain. Floods and droughts also affected the proportions of functional feeding groups during the survey period: the proportion of scrapers was high right after heavy rains, while the proportion of predators tended to increase in intermittent-type streams as the riffle zone decreased. Finally, although species richness and abundance were strongly influenced by heavy rain, they recovered to background levels for within one month, and varied consistently among stream types, indicating habitat stability.

• 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.

• 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 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.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Professional Engineers Association
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.22-26
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• 2009

As Korea's water resources are dominated by intense summer rainfall and steep mountainous territory, it is inevitable for most of the rainfall in Korea to flow into sea immediately and directly. It cannot help having severe conditions which droughts and floods occur repeatedly due to the seasonal and geological conditions in Korea. Those kinds of disasters will be expected more frequently and seriously in the future because of the unexpected climate changes in the world. Therefore, Korean government will plan to develop small and medium-size dams environmentally friendly, multi-regional water supply system continuously and alternative water resources such as river bank filtrations, rainwater storages and underground dams, in order to prevent floods as well as to secure stable water supply.