Drought evaluation using unstructured data: a case study for Boryeong area

Abstract

Drought is caused by a combination of various hydrological or meteorological factor, so it is difficult to accurately assess drought event, but various drought indices have been developed to interpret them quantitatively. However, the drought indexes currently being used are calculated from the lack of a single variable, which is a problem that does not accurately determine the drought event caused by complex causes. Shortage of a single variable may not be a drought, but it is judged to be a drought. On the other hand, research on developing indices using unstructured data, which is widely used in big data analysis, is being carried out in other fields and proven to be superior. Therefore, in this study, we intend to calculate the drought index by combining unstructured data (news data) with weather and hydrologic information (rainfall and dam inflow) that are being used for the existing drought index, and to evaluate the utilization of drought interpretation through verification of the calculated drought index. The Clayton Copula function was used to calculate the joint drought index, and the parameter estimation was used by the calibration method. The analysis showed that the drought index, which combines unstructured data, properly expresses the drought period compared to the existing drought index (SPI, SDI). In addition, ROC scores were calculated higher than existing drought indices, making them more useful in drought interpretation. The joint drought index calculated in this study is considered highly useful in that it complements the analytical limits of the existing single variable drought index and provides excellent utilization of the drought index using unstructured data.