기후변화 적응 강화를 위한 사회기반시설의 취약성 분석 및 대응방안 연구 II

Abstract

Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change of the Physical Infrastructure and Developing Adaptation Measures in Korea Ⅱ The impacts of climate change manifest themselves in diverse forms in diverse areas, among which are natural hazards from intense precipitation, typhoons, and snowstorms, which have become especially serious recently. Such natural hazards can destroy or damage physical infrastructures and thus incur socio-economic losses and threaten the safety of people. Therefore, identifying the vulnerability of a given society's physical infrastructure to the climate change and developing appropriate adaptation measures are necessary, as establishing an adaptive public infrastructure would reduce the damages and the repair cost. The present study was conducted to (1) investigate the history of damages of the Korean society's physical infrastructure, (2) develop a nation-wide map of vulnerability of the infrastructure, (3) assess the risk level of local infrastructure, and (4) propose adaptation measures based on the vulnerability and risk assessment as well as library research. The vulnerability of the societal infrastructure was assessed mainly against floods and typhoons. The factors considered in the assessment were susceptibility, degree of exposure, and adaptive capacity, which were selected based on data document reviews and specialists' consensus. Since the units and data range varied across the components, each data set was rescaled from 1 to 10 scales in order to standardize the subcomponents' data, which were then tallied and entered into the higher level data sets. The computation of the vulnerability resulted in a vulnerability map of the entire nation. The items that were significant in the highly vulnerable areas were the size of road spaces, the percentage of aged houses, the size of urbanized areas, the number of houses, the frequency of typhoons, the number of preschool children, the amount of flood in terms of 100-year frequency, and the number of natural hazards. Costal areas were more vulnerable than inland areas, as those areas were exposed to the climate factors more than inland areas. The present study devised assessment guidelines and a checklist to assess the risk level of local infrastructure against climate change. The checklist contained measurements about 'the possibility of influence of the climate change', 'the seriousness of the influence', and 'appropriate adaptation measures' to offset the risks to assess 28 types of infrastructures that were grouped into 6 categories. The risk level was calculated by multiplying the values of these three indices. The assessment of the risk level was done by specialists in 14 sampled places, that is, 6 in costal areas and 8 in inland areas. The results show that housing facilities presented a high risk level in inland areas whereas tide embankments showed a high risk level in costal areas. Rivers and housing facilities had a high risk level in both areas. These results indicate that regional characteristics should be taken into consideration when developing climate change adaptation measures. They also show that the risk assessment tools devised by the current research can be useful in assessing risks and developing adaptation measures at the local levels, as they generated consistent assessment results from assessment of certain high-risk infrastructures conducted by many specialists who worked in different locales. Based on the results, the current study suggests four climate change adaptation measures. First of all, adaptation strategies should be based on the analysis of the climate change vulnerability. To this end, periodical assessment of the climate change vulnerability of the society's physical infrastructure is necessary to identify vulnerable areas and develop adaptation strategies. Second, the operating system needs to be improved, and related technology should be developed. In order to enhance the adaptive capacity of the infrastructure, the standards for the architectural design should be adequately modified, construction materials of the physical infrastructure should be changed, and related technology should be developed. Third, law and regulations need to be amended for climate change adaptation. This action should enable the change and redesign of urban planning to promote environment-friendly adaptation measures and enhance the adaptive capacity of local areas. Fourth, an adequate risk management and response system should be established. For example, it is necessary to strengthen the emergency rescue and redemption system, enact a natural hazards insurance system, establish a hazard information sharing system, and develop a community-based risk response system. A few words of caution are in order regarding the interpretation of the present study. Since the result is based on the input data concerning the overall vulnerability of the physical infrastructures, a certain area assessed as vulnerable should not be simplistically interpreted as an area that is also absolutely vulnerable. In the same manner, a certain vulnerable facility should not be simplistically judged as absolutely vulnerable, as it was a result obtained from a specifically sampled area. The assessment tools devised by the current research needs to be improved in the future, and assessment of infrastructures should be conducted on a more detailed level against different climate features. The present study will provide some basic data for the policy making of Korea's climate change response and adaptation as well as a useful methodology for future research.