Assessment of socio-economic drought information using drought-related Internet news data (Part A: Socio-economic drought data construct and evaluation socio-economic drought information)

Assessment of drought impact on the socio-economic fabric is a critical issue worldwide. Many studies have attempted to obtain socio-economic drought information. However, not enough attention has been paid to reducing the awareness gap between the monitoring of data of drought by public institutions, and local situations. This study proposes a socio-economic drought information (SEDI) based on Internet news articles that can consider droughts in situ. Based on 20,999 processed news articles, the SEDI is classified into four categories: water deficit, water security and support, economic damage and impact, and environmental and sanitation impact. In the moderately and severely dry conditions, the relationships between SEDI and monitoring data were evident with the receiver operating characteristic and the area under the curve of above 0.7. The evaluation results showed that SEDI could realistically reflect the lack of precipitation and social impact on South Korea. SEDI can successfully detect drought situations, thereby allowing understanding of the spatial temporal patterns of drought impact. The proposed SEDI can help effectively disseminate public safety information, thereby providing helpful data on local areas.