Relationship Analysis of Sea Level–Rainfall for Determination of Disaster Prevention Performance in Coastal Cities

Abstract

Coastal cities are burdened by complex causes of disasters, including rising sea level and rainfall. In setting the disaster prevention performance for different regions, the existing disaster management guidelines take only rainfall into account. The incorporation of regional characteristics of coastal cities involving complex factors is needed in order to improve the disaster response. It is important to improve the standards of target rainfall for disaster prevention performance that take sea level rise into account to effectively address the limitations of coastal cities. This study conducted a correlation analysis between rainfall and sea level, which is expected to rise due to climate change. Based on the analysis, a sea level-rainfall rating curve was suggested, which takes into account the cause of inundation, namely sea level. We analyzed a total of 126 scenarios considering the sea level-rainfall rise caused by climate change in the Centum City district in Busan, which previously suffered from costal floods. The analysis identified that flood incidents were largely affected by the sea level rise compared with increased rainfall regardless of the duration of rainfall. Based on the results, it was concluded that the existing guidelines, which only consider varying volumes of rainfall due to climate change, do not properly reflect the disaster prevention performance of coastal cities that are exposed to complex disasters. Keywords: Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, Coastal Inundation, Disaster Prevention Performance, Target Rainfall