Probabilistic assessment of causal relationship between drought and water quality management in the Nakdong River basin using the Bayesian network model

This study investigated the change of the achievement rate of the target water quality conditioned on the occurrence of severe drought, to assess the effects of meteorological drought on the water quality management in the Nakdong River basin. Using three drought indices with difference time scales such as 30-, 60-, 90-day, i.e., SPI30, SPI60, SPI90, and three water quality indicators such as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), total organic carbon (TOC), and total phosphorus (T-P), we first analyzed the relationship between severe drought occurrence water quality change in mid-sized watersheds, and identified the watersheds in which water quality was highly affected by severe drought. The Bayesian network models were constructed for the watersheds to probabilistically assess the relationship between severe drought and water quality management. Among 22 mid-sized watersheds in the Nakdong River basin, four watersheds, such as #2005, #2018, #2021, and #2022, had high environmental vulnerability to severe drought. In addition, severe drought affected spring and fall water quality in the watershed #2021, summer water quality in the #2005, and winter water quality in the #2022. The causal relationship between drought and water quality management is usufaul in proactive drought management.