Journal of Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers ISSN:1738-3692(Print) 2093-7709(Online) 한국농공학회논문집

This study aimed to develop an agricultural drought assessment methodology for irrigated paddy field districts from a single reservoir. Agricultural drought was defined as the reservoir storage shortage state that cannot satisfy water requirement from the paddy fields. The suggested model, SRADEMP (a Single Reservoir Agricultural Drought Evaluation Model for Paddy), was composed of 4 submodels: PWBM (Paddy Water Balance Model), RWBM (Reservoir Water Balance Model), FA (Frequency and probability Analysis model), and DCI (Drought Classification and Indexing model). Two indices, PDF (Paddy Drought Frequency) and PDI (Paddy Drought Index) were also introduced to classify agricultural drought severity. Both values were divided into 4 steps, i.e. normal, moderate drought, severe drought, and extreme drought. Each step of PDI was ranged from +4.2 to -1.39, from -1.39 to -3.33, from -3.33 to -4.0 and less than -4.0, respectively. SRADEMP was applied to Jangheung reservoir irrigation district, and the results showed good relationships between simulated results and the observed data including historical drought records showing that SRADEMP explains better the drought conditions in irrigated paddy districts than PDSI.