Assessing Strategies for Urban Climate Change Adaptation: The Case of Six Metropolitan Cities in South Korea

Jae-Seung Lee,Jeong Kim

doi:10.3390/su10062065

Abstract

As interest in climate change adaptation grows, an increasing number of national and local governments are developing adaptation strategies. This study assesses the strategies for urban climate change adaptation of municipal governments in South Korea. The adaptation plans and budget expenditures of six metropolitan cities in South Korea were compared, based on the Implementation Plan for Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (IPCCAS) 2012–2016 and annual expenditure reports of each city. The results show that the actual implementation of these adaptation programs varied vis-à-vis the original plans, in terms of the level of overall expenditure and sector-specific expenditure. The following findings were drawn from the analysis: First, in most cases, the highest adaptation priorities were disaster/infrastructure, water management, and the health sector. Second, actual expenditure on climate change adaptation programs was smaller than the planned budget in the IPCCAS. Third, the prioritized sectors matched for planning and implementation in Seoul, Daegu, Daejeon, and Incheon, but not in Busan and Ulsan. Fourth, the adaptation programs of South Korean metropolitan cities do not seem to have been well-tailored to each case.

Highlights

The global urban population has grown from 2.3 billion in 1990 to about 4 billion in 2016, or 43% and 54.5% of the world’s population, respectively
Since anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions originating from cities account for up to 70% of global GHG emissions [8], cities can play a significant role in climate change mitigation by reducing fossil fuel consumption and promoting a low-carbon economy
Ulsan introduced unique criteria—healthy and safe city, water-circulating eco city, and climate-friendly city—while the other cities retained traditional criteria based on sectors such as health, disaster, agriculture, and forest. To resolve this issue of inconsistent classification, we reclassified the adaptation programs stated in the Implementation Plan for Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (IPCCAS) in accordance with the criteria used in National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (NCCAS) 2011–2015, which presented 29 strategies and 87 specific plans under ten sectors: health, disaster/infrastructure, agriculture, forest, ocean/fisheries, water management, ecosystem, climate change monitoring/projection, adaptation industry/energy, and education/promotion/international cooperation

Summary

Introduction

The global urban population has grown from 2.3 billion in 1990 to about 4 billion in 2016, or 43% and 54.5% of the world’s population, respectively. It is projected that 60% of the world’s population will dwell in urban areas by 2030 [1,2] Such rapid urbanization poses various social and environmental problems for cities, including insufficient housing, traffic congestion, increasing crime rates, environmental pollution, and inadequate sanitation services [3,4,5,6,7]. In addition to these “traditional” challenges, responding to climate change has emerged as an important task for municipal governments. Since it is expected that climate change will increase both the risk of disasters and loss from those disasters [17], cities must find ways to deal with climate hazards

Methods

Results

Conclusion