Water resources in Jeju Island are dependent virtually entirely on groundwater. For groundwater resources, drought damage can cause environmental and economic losses because it progresses slowly and occurs for a long time in a large area. Therefore, this study quantitatively evaluated groundwater level fluctuations using principal component and cluster analyses for 42 monitoring wells in Jeju Island, and further identified the types of groundwater fluctuations caused by drought. As a result of principal component analysis for the monthly average groundwater level during 2005-2019 and the daily average groundwater level during the dry season, it was found that the first three principal components account for most of the variance 74.5-93.5% of the total data. In the cluster analysis using these three principal components, most of wells belong to Cluster 1, and seasonal characteristics have a significant impact on groundwater fluctuations. However, wells belonging to Cluster 2 with high factor loadings of components 2 and 3 affected by groundwater pumping, tide levels, and nearby surface water are mainly distributed on the west coast. Based on these results, it is expected that groundwater in the western area will be more vulnerable to saltwater intrusion and groundwater depletion caused by drought.

Keywords: Groundwater levels, Time series, Principal component analysis, Cluster analysis