• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.493-500
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• 2014

This paper presents findings from the assessment of the volcanic ash fragility for multi-hazard resisting vinyl greenhouse and livestock shed among the agricultural facilities. The volcanic ash fragility was evaluated by using a combination of the FOSM (first-order second-moment) method, available statistics of volcanic load, facility specifications, and building code. In this study, the evaluated volcanic ash fragilities represent the conditional probability of failure of the agricultural facilities over the full range of volcanic ash loads. For the evaluation, 6 types(ie., 2 single span, 2 tree crop, and 2 double span types) of multi-hazard resisting vinyl greenhouses and 3 types(ie., standard, coast, and mountain types) of livestock sheds are considered. All volcanic ash fragilities estimated in this study were fitted by using parameters of the GEV(generalized extreme value) distribution function, and the obtained parameters were complied into a database to be used in future. The volcanic ash fragilities obtained in this study are planning to be used to evaluate risk by volcanic ash when Mt. Baekdu erupts.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.515-523
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• 2013

The eastern coast of South Korea is expected to be damaged by volcanic ash when Mt. Baekdusan volcano erupts. Even if the amount of volcanic ash is small, it can be fatal on the agricultural sector withering many plants and causing soil acidification. Thus, in this paper, we aim to estimate agricultural losses caused by the volcanic ash and to visualize them with Google map. To estimate the volcanic ash losses, a damage assessment model is needed. As the volcanic ash hazard depends on the kind of a crops and the ash thickness, the fragility function of damage assessment model should represent the relation between ash thickness and damage rate of crops. Thus, we model the fragility function using the damage rate for each crop of RiskScape. The volcanic ash losses can be calculated with the agricultural output and the price of each crop using the fragility function. This paper also represents the estimated result of the losses in Gangwon province, which is most likely to get damaged by volcanic ashes in Korea. According to the result with gross agricultural output of Gangwon province in 2010, the amount of volcanic ash losses runs nearly 635,124 million wons in Korean currency if volcanic ash is accumulated over four millimeters. This amount represents about 50% of the gross agricultural output of Gangwon province. We consider the damage only for the crops in this paper. However, a volcanic ash fall has the potential to damage the assets for a farm, including the soil fertility and installations. Thus, to estimate the total amount of volcanic ash damage for the whole agricultural sectors, these collateral damages should also be considered.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.524-535
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• 2013

Catastrophe risk models require the damage functions of each vulnerable item in inventory to estimate volcanic ash losses. The damage functions are used to represent the relation between damage factors and damage and also widely used in engineering and natural hazard studies to calculate the vulnerability. In most cases, damage functions are constructed as fragility or vulnerability curves, and researchers are confused by the similarities between them particularly when they perform interdisciplinary research. Thus, we aim to explain the similarities and differences between fragility and vulnerability curves and their relationship by providing case studies to construct them. In addition, we suggest a simple method to construct the damage functions between damage ratio and volcanic ash thickness using limited damage data. This study comes from the fact that damage functions are generally constructed using damage data. However, there is no available volcanic ash damage data in Korea, and not even enough volcanic disaster data to construct damage functions in the world, compared to other hazards. Using the method suggested in the study and the limited damage data from Japan and New Zealand, we construct Weibull-type functions or linear functions dependent of available data to calculate volcanic ash loss estimation, which we think need to be corrected to make it more suitable for inventory characteristics and environmental conditions in Korea.