• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2019

This study aims at deriving the implications for adaptation policy and research target regarding climate change risk assessment in ecosystem sector in Korea. The common ground of exemplary cases of "world leaders" in terms of adaptation policies and researches was that they emphasize nationwide study on climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem in target of establishing scientific evidence-bases and reducing uncertainty for their national adaptation policies and plans. In light of this trend, Korean government should settle down more successful adaptation structure by leading adaptation system in further national policy-settings to observe UNFCCC and CBD integratedly and effectively, considering the economic value of adaptation in policy, and strengthening scientific research programs and technology developments. Moreover, risks assessment based on diagnoses and analysis on the risk factors (hazard, exposure, and vulnerability) for climate change in nationwide habitats and species and consolidations with subsequent adaptation strategies could make adaptations in ecosystem sector more effective and successful.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.304-314
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• 2015

We have reviewed the current status of coastal vulnerability index(CVI) to be guided into an appropriate CVI development for Korean coast and applied a methodology into the east coast of Korea to quantify coastal vulnerability by future sea_level rise. The CVIs reviewed includes USGS CVI, sea_level rise CVI, compound CVI, and multi scale CVI. The USGS CVI, expressed into the external forcing of sea_level rise, wave and tide, and adaptive capacity of morphology, erosion and slope, is adopted here for CVI quantification. The range of CVI is 1.826~22.361 with a mean of 7.085 for present condition and increases into 2.887~30.619 with a mean of 12.361 for the year of 2100(1 m sea_level rise). The index "VERY HIGH" is currently 8.57% of the coast and occupies 35.56% in 2100. The pattern of CVI change by sea_level rise is different to different local areas, and Gangneung, Yangyang and Goseong show the highest increase. The land use pattern in the "VERY HIGH" index is dominated by both human system of housing complex, road, cropland, etc, and natural system of sand, wetland, forestry, etc., which suggests existing land utilization should be reframed in the era of climate change. Though CVI approach is highly efficient to deal with a large set of climate scenarios entailed in climate impact assessment due to uncertainties, we also propose three_level assessment for the application of CVI methodology in the site specific adaptation such as first screening assessment by CVI, second scoping assessment by impact model, and final risk quantification with the result of impact model.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.677-693
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• 2013

IPCC showed that calculation of climate vulnerability index requires standardization process of various proxy variables for the estimation of climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. In this study, four different methodologies of standardization methods: Z-score, Rescaling, Ranking, and Distance to the reference country, are employed to evaluate climate vulnerability-VRI (Vulnerability-Resilience Indicator) over Korean peninsula, and the error ranges of VRI, arising from employing the different standardization are estimated. All of proxy variables are provided by CCGIS (Climate Change adaptation toolkit based on GIS) which hosts information on both past and current socio-economic data and climate and environmental IPCC SRES (A2, B1, A1B, A1T, A1FI, and A1 scenarios) climate data for the decades of 2000s, 2020s, 2050s, and 2100s. The results showed that Z-score and Rescaling methods showed statistically undistinguishable results with minor differences of spatial distribution, while Ranking and Distance to the reference country methods showed some possibility to lead the different ranking of VRI among South Korean provinces, depending on the local characteristics and reference province. The resultant VRIs calculated from different standardization methods showed Cronbach's alpha of more than 0.84, indicating that all of different methodologies were overall consistent. Similar horizontal distributions were shown with the same trends: VRI increases as province is close to the coastal region and/or it close toward lower latitude, and decreases as it is close to urbanization area. Other characteristics of the four different standardization are discussed in this study.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.296-306
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• 2016

There is a growing interest in establishing a regional climate change adaptation policy as the climate change impact in the region and local scale increases. This study focused on the analysis of 32 regions on its characteristics of local climate change adaptation plans. First, statistic program R was used for conducting cluster analysis based on the frequency and budgets of adaptation plan. Further, we analyzed damage frequency from newspapers regarding climate change impacts in eight categories which were caused by extreme weather events on 2,565 cases for 24 years. Lastly, the characteristics of climate change adaptation plan was compared with damage frequency patterns for evaluating the adequacy of climate change adaptation plan on each cluster. Four different clusters were created by cluster analysis. Most clusters clearly have their own characteristics on certain sectors. There was a high frequency of damage in 'disaster' and 'health' sectors. Climate change adaptation plan and budget also invested a lot on those sectors. However, when comparing the relative rate among regional governments, there was a difference between types of damage and climate change adaptation plan. We assumed that the difference could come from that each region established their adaptation plans based on not only the frequency of damage, but vulnerability assessment, and expert opinions as well. The result of study could contribute to policy making of climate change adaptation plan.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.53-83
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• 2015

Recently, climate change risk assessment has been discussed as a medium process for making climate change adaptation policies in the research field of climate change adaptation. Climate change risk assessment has been understood to have an intermediary role among impact assessment, vulnerable assessment and policy, and is used in the process of devising adaptation policies in the United Kingdom (UK). This paper quantitatively assessed the risks of climate change in Korea, applied the methods used in the UK, underwent the classification process and suggested implications of Korean adaptation policies. A survey of experts, based on Delphi's method and the classification criterion developed by Klinke and Renn(2002), was also carried out. A list of climate risks was created from the climate change impact and vulnerability assessment report of Korea, first national adaptation policy of Korea, and general climate risks of the UK. From the results, 42 risks out of total 125 risks were selected based on their importance. The assessed risks with factors, such as high impact and urgency, are related to repeated and large scale damage from storms and floods caused by abnormal or extreme weather events. Ecological changes and social infrastructure risks were engaged as required as a policy response for medium to longer term. As for making the classification, types of climate risks were suggested to manage the basic capacity in relation to social trust, triggering mechanism and responsibility. Following suggestions are put forward as the base of autonomous adaptation: increasing the capacity of civil society, mutual trust and civil participation in adaptation policy process.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.371-384
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• 2013

The appearance of abnormal weather caused by climate change have both direct and indirect impact on the society. Especially, agriculture is brought up as a socially important interest having direct impact of climate change in growth and harvest of crops. This study aims to perform vulnerability assessment for the South Korea's two main imported grains, maize and wheat. The production vulnerability assessment of maize and wheat in USA and China to temperature variability, which has a great impact in production, is performed. First, grain cultivation period which affects productivity of main grain production country was selected based on the main cultivation period from several references and previous studies. Then, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR5 greenhouse gas scenario RCP(representative concentration pathways)8.5 scenarios was used to select the future climate that correspond to the cultivation period of maize and wheat for each producing country. According to the result of production vulnerability analysis using adaptation (temperature changing trend) and sensitivity(temperature variability), the productivity of wheat was higher in USA, while productivity of maize was higher in China. In the future, the result showed that productivity of all two grains will be favorable in USA. The result of production vulnerability assessment through this study can later be used as a preparation data for the coming fluctuation in grain price due to climate change.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.18-25
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• 2017

Damage of both life and property has been increased by natural disaster under the influence of climate change, thus many natural disaster vulnerability researches have been carried out to make adaptation policy and impact assessment of climate change recently. Their method for assessing vulnerability usually have used proxy variables for making vulnerability indices. However, because their results were too qualitative and relative it tends to be hard to make absolute comparison and establish standard of prevention or adaptation ability. Accordingly, this study aimed at quantifying natural disaster vulnerability using emergy through recognizing disaster as the relations between order and disorder by system approach. As a result, ordering energy (4.66E+22 sej/yr) and ordered structure (1.98E+22 sej) of Busan in 2003 and disordering energy (7.80E+18 sej), disordered parts (4.55E+20 sej) and rebuilding energy (3.87E+20 sej) by typhoon Maemi were analysed. And then, this was compared with Hurricane Andrew in Dade County. Through this comparison, if the prevention ability of Busan increases, disordered parts can be reduced against the more powerful disordering energy. Also, prevention for additional damages by disaster is needed to practical rebuilding action. In conclusion, it was able to figure out the impact of disaster quantitatively by natural systems and urban systems showing as common measure. Based on this study and further research to make effective prevention for how much prevention ability should be increased will contribute to producing the scientific data for disaster management policy in future.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.190-203
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• 2015

VRI(Vulnerability-Resilience Index), which is defined as a function of 3 variables: climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, has been quantified for the case of Typhoon which is one of the extreme weathers that will become more serious as climate change proceeds. Because VRI is only indicating the relative importance of vulnerability between regions, the VRI quantification is prerequisite for the effective adaptation policy for climate in Korea. For this purpose, damage statistics such as amount of damage, occurrence frequency, and major damaged districts caused by Typhoon over the past 20 years, has been employed. According to the VRI definition, we first calculated VRI over every district in the case of both with and without weighting factors of climate exposure proxy variables. For the quantitative estimation of weighting factors, we calculated correlation coefficients (R) for each of the proxy variables against damage statistics of Typhoon, and then used R as weighting factors of proxy variables. The results without applying weighting factors indicates some biases between VRI and damage statistics in some regions, but most of biases has been improved by applying weighting factors. Finally, due to the relations between VRI and damage statistics, we are able to quantify VRI expressed as a unit of KRW, showing that VRI=1 is approximately corresponding to 500 hundred million KRW. This methodology of VRI quantification employed in this study, can be also practically applied to the number of future climate scenario studies over Korea.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2013

This study has purpose to minimize the impact of climate change of Siheung. Vulnerability assessment was carried out for establishing the Siheung Climate Change Master Plan. Climate change vulnerability assessment analyzed using climate exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity indicators. A proxy variable is selected from each indicator. Meteorological data uses the RCP scenarios provided by the Meteorological Administration, and this study assumes that the same trend will continues in the future. Siheung are vulnerable to heavy rains in the flooded roads and farmland. Also, it is necessary to be careful heat wave in summer. The size and scale of the damage depends on the city's ability to respond to the impacts of climate change. It is necessary to make a adaptation plan for climate change impact assessment and vulnerability analysis. This study will be used to make Siheung Climate Change Master Plan and to determine the priority of the policy as guideline. It is expected that this study is helpful to pursue climate change vulnerability assessment of other local governments.

• Journal of Conservation Science
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.437-448
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• 2016

Studies on vulnerability of cultural heritage and adaptation strategy to worldwide climate change have been actively carried out in advanced countries since the late 20th century, and this established a valid research methodology and piled up climate and deterioration dataset in the field of climate change. Meanwhile, we still have tasks to acquire related scientific data despite referencing political researches in Korea. Applying Korean future climate to impact analysis, deterioration of Korean stone heritage is likely prospected to change into complexity in terms of physical, chemical and biological weathering that may bring impacts on conservation business and administrative field of cultural heritage. Further studies will ensure detailed implication of climate change impact on Korean stone heritage by means of down-scaling analysis of areas to local scale and dataset frequency to an hour. It is important to sort out capability and vulnerability of the stone heritage to future environment, and to make an adaption and prevention strategies.