The Characteristic of the Drought in the Korean Peninsula
Prof. Hi-Ryong Byun who is the experts of the drought claimed that the drought in the Korean Peninsula has the period and it will be more severe. The following statements are from him (Department of Environmental Atmospheric Sciences, Pukyong National University).
How critical is the drought now? Now the drought in Korea is very severe so it can be called as ‘the Great Drought’. Currently the districts which recorded the highest extreme are Chuncheon and Gangwha. Both district are under the worst situation of drought since the observation start.
He said that we are under the worst situation of drought and his argument is based on the statistics about the absolute and relative amount of water. he also claimed that there are several methods of determinating drought. And he focused on mainly two things as the best method.
One is researching the amount of water remaining that is called the effective precipitation and Another one is comparing common year value with effective precipitation. This is called the drought index.
He analysed the meteorological record from the Joseon Dynasty period and concluded that this year is the period of the greatest drought. He found the periodic pattern of drought from analysing the record of “Annals of the Joseon Dynasty” and “Samguk Sagi”. Originally, this year corresponds to the peak of the drought. He cannot determine the starting point of the 124 years period is either this year or next year but he predicted that the severe drought will come in near future in his paper (2008). His prediction is proven to be true.
So the drought will become more severe over time plotting in undulation. Even using other method to predict the drought, the result is that the severe drought will occur frequently until the year 2041.
Actually, we already knew that drought will come in Kangwon-do and the northern district since at the end of September but we just put it off. So we are in the severe situation. If we did prepare the drought situation earlier, we could reduce the damage.
We should not think like this, “just endure the drought only this year” rather we have to establish a long term policy to overcome the drought situation. Because we have no policy preparing drought, the warning system and organization to deal with the drought. After that we have to do what we can like saving water, additional production and so on.
It cannot be too much to build dams as much as possible in the longer term. Next, we have to put the seawater desalination to practical use as soon as possible. That means that convert the sea water to the fresh water. And we have to study Artificial precipitation without setting on fire, extracting water in the fog and so on.
The severe drought is not a phenomenon only in Korea but in the world. Such as in California, U.S., China's Shandong Peninsula there are severe drought, too. But in the case of Korea, only the central districts such as northern Kangwon-do, Gyeonggi-do, Hwanghae-do are affected by the severe drought, not the southern. It is mistery. There are some reasons for this phenomenon but he cannot know why drought occurs, even though he can predict the event of severe drought.
How critical is the drought now? Now the drought in Korea is very severe so it can be called as ‘the Great Drought’. Currently the districts which recorded the highest extreme are Chuncheon and Gangwha. Both district are under the worst situation of drought since the observation start.
He said that we are under the worst situation of drought and his argument is based on the statistics about the absolute and relative amount of water. he also claimed that there are several methods of determinating drought. And he focused on mainly two things as the best method.
One is researching the amount of water remaining that is called the effective precipitation and Another one is comparing common year value with effective precipitation. This is called the drought index.
He analysed the meteorological record from the Joseon Dynasty period and concluded that this year is the period of the greatest drought. He found the periodic pattern of drought from analysing the record of “Annals of the Joseon Dynasty” and “Samguk Sagi”. Originally, this year corresponds to the peak of the drought. He cannot determine the starting point of the 124 years period is either this year or next year but he predicted that the severe drought will come in near future in his paper (2008). His prediction is proven to be true.
So the drought will become more severe over time plotting in undulation. Even using other method to predict the drought, the result is that the severe drought will occur frequently until the year 2041.
Actually, we already knew that drought will come in Kangwon-do and the northern district since at the end of September but we just put it off. So we are in the severe situation. If we did prepare the drought situation earlier, we could reduce the damage.
We should not think like this, “just endure the drought only this year” rather we have to establish a long term policy to overcome the drought situation. Because we have no policy preparing drought, the warning system and organization to deal with the drought. After that we have to do what we can like saving water, additional production and so on.
It cannot be too much to build dams as much as possible in the longer term. Next, we have to put the seawater desalination to practical use as soon as possible. That means that convert the sea water to the fresh water. And we have to study Artificial precipitation without setting on fire, extracting water in the fog and so on.
The severe drought is not a phenomenon only in Korea but in the world. Such as in California, U.S., China's Shandong Peninsula there are severe drought, too. But in the case of Korea, only the central districts such as northern Kangwon-do, Gyeonggi-do, Hwanghae-do are affected by the severe drought, not the southern. It is mistery. There are some reasons for this phenomenon but he cannot know why drought occurs, even though he can predict the event of severe drought.