Abstract
Agricultural systems in low-income food-deficit countries face considerable risks from climate extremes and geopolitical tensions. Here, using remote sensing and meteorological observations, we show that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea exhibits lower agricultural drought resistance than the Republic of Korea under meteorological droughts of similar severity. Energy shortages, exacerbated by trade sanctions, have limited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s irrigation capacity, further impairing its drought resistance and food security.
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Data availability
The TerraClimate dataset is available at https://www.climatologylab.org/terraclimate.html. The Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station is available at https://chc.ucsb.edu/data/chirps. The Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM is available at https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/GPM_3IMERGM_07/summary?keywords=GPM_3IMERGM_07. The CSIF dataset used in the analysis is available via figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6387494.v2 (ref. 32). The MCD43A4 Collection 6 dataset is available at https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/mcd43a4v006/. The annual maps of rice crops are available from ref. 31. All statistical data used in the study (such as cropland equipped for irrigation, water use efficiency, fertilizer imports and coal imports) can be found via GitHub in the Excel file Data_Statistics.xlsx at https://github.com/QiangHHZ/Sanctions-Drought-Korea/blob/main/Data/Data_Statistics.xlsx. A detailed description and active links for each statistical variable are provided in Supplementary Table 1. Source data are provided with this paper.
Code availability
All the scripts for the data analyses and visualization are available via GitHub at https://github.com/QiangHHZ/Sanctions-Drought-Korea/tree/main/Codes.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 42271375, J.D.; 42461144212, J.D.), and the Youth Interdisciplinary Team Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. JCTD-2021-04, J.D.). We thank Y. Ryu at Seoul National University, X. He at the National University of Singapore, G. Zhang at the China Agricultural University and N. You at the Chinese Academy of Sciences for their valuable comments in the initial stage of this study and for editing the paper.
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J.D., Q.Z. and Q.G. conceptualized and designed the study. Q.Z. collected and processed the data, performed the analysis, constructed the figures and wrote the initial paper. S.G. and S.H. assisted in the analysis of long-chain drought propagation. All authors contributed to writing, reviewing and editing the paper.
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Nature Food thanks David Von Hippel and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Temporal dynamics of key variables influencing rice yield in the DPRK and ROK.
a, Rice yield in the DPRK and ROK since 1995, with coefficient of variation (CV) values for the both countries. b–e, Comparisons of irrigation capacity, including cropland equipped for irrigation, total dam capacity, water use efficiency of irrigation agriculture (WUE), and water consumption coefficient. Agricultural irrigation WUE represents the Gross Value Added per unit of water used (expressed in dollars/m3) of the agricultural irrigation sector. f, Changes in electricity generation in the DPRK and ROK since 1980. g, Changes in coal production in the DPRK and ROK since 1980. h–i, Comparisons of energy imports, including crude oil and coal, in the DPRK and ROK since 1980. Gray vertical dashed lines in b–i correspondingly indicate the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991) and the onset of sanctions on the DPRK due to its nuclear program (2006).
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Texts 1–7, Figs. 1–32 and Tables 1–4.
Source data
Source Data Fig. 1
Statistical source data.
Source Data Fig. 2
Statistical source data.
Source Data Extended Data Fig. 1
Statistical source data.
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Zhang, Q., Dong, J., Xu, Z. et al. Energy shortages undermine agricultural drought resistance in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Nat Food (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01226-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01226-8
