Agricultural Drought Case Study in South Korea: Selection of Rural Specialization Districts based on Principal Component Analysis

Recently, the frequency and severity of droughts have gradually increased due to extreme weather events and global warming. As the demand for drought management increases, field surveys and water supply are actively conducted in many countries. Given that such drought assessment and support require the consumption of labor and financial resources, the prioritization of essential agricultural areas has become a major topic for efficient decision-making in drought relief. In this study, we proposed a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for selecting rural specialization districts across the 162 administrative regions of South Korea. Additionally, we aimed to investigate real cases of agricultural drought occurred in these regions by utilizing the survey of water supply measures derived from Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. The research data comprised seven agricultural specialization factors, exemplified by agricultural workforce and infrastructure. First, we implemented singular decomposition method included in PCA process to represent the comprehensive trends of the agricultural specialization factors with maximum reflection. High value of principal component scores (PCS) estimated from PCA was interpreted as regions with high agricultural relevance. Lastly, the PCS were classified into different levels, defining top-ranking regions as rural specialization districts. Based on agricultural drought case studies from 2018 to 2021, it is expected that finding relative damage-prone areas and establishing appropriate drought responses will be feasible.Keywords: Principal Component Analysis, Rural Specialization Districts, Agricultural Specialization Factors, Principal Components ScoreAcknowledgementThis work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government(MSIT) (No. RS-2023-00250239) and this research was supported by Korea Environment Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) through Water Management Innovation Program for Drought (RS-2022-KE002032) funded by Korea Ministry of Environment.