Accurate assessment of agricultural groundwater usage is an essential task to cope with drought that occurs irregularly in time and location. In this study, the agricultural groundwater usage was calculated in nationwide public wells (1,386 bedrock wells) during 5-year period (2010-2014) by using electric power consumption and well specification data. National average of agricultural groundwater usage per each well was estimated as $66.2m^3/day$, corresponding to 21.6% of total permitted volume of groundwater in each well. Chungcheong Nam-do had the highest usage with 38-55.6%. The value increased to 58.1% when the total permitted volume was based upon the supply standard against drought, and the value reached 100% in Chungcheong Nam-do. In Ganghwa distirct that suffered from severe drought in recent years, the average groundwater usage was 61.4%. In 2014, when the drought was the most severe with 45% precipitation of the average annual rainfall, the nationwide usage was turned out to be 25.6%, indicating about 4% higher than average agricultural groundwater usage 21.6%. Therefore, the quantitative assessment of groundwater usage in this study signifies that adequate use of groundwater is crucial to cope with agricultural drought.

Keywords: Groundwater use;Agriculture;Public well;Groundwater allocation;Drought;