This study performed the bivariate drought frequency analysis for duration and severity of drought, using copula functions which allow considering the correlation structure of joint features of drought. We suggested the confidence intervals of duration-severity-frequency (DSF) curves for the given drought duration using stochastic scheme of monthly rainfall generation for 57 sites in Korea. This study also investigated drought risk via illustrating the largest drought events on record over 50 and 100 consecutive years. It appears that drought risks are much higher in some parts of the Nakdong River basin, southern and east coastal areas. However, such analyses are not always reliable, especially when the frequency analysis is performed based on the data observed over relatively short period of time. To quantify the uncertainty of drought frequency curves, the droughts were filtered by different durations. The 5%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 95% confidence intervals of the drought severity for a given duration were estimated based on the simulated rainfall time series. Finally, it is shown that the growing uncertainties is revealed in the estimation of the joint probability using the two marginal distributions since the correlation coefficient of two variables is relatively low.
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