[Square] Safe Villages through Comprehensive Flood and Wind Damage Living Area Improvement Project

In October last year, the typhoon 'Mitag' caused concentrated heavy rainfall exceeding 100mm per hour along the East Coast region. At that time, 15 people died, and property damage amounted to 167.7 billion KRW. Recovery work is still ongoing, and some people are still staying in temporary housing facilities. Looking at the recent heavy rainfall events in South Korea, the number of days with more than 80mm of rain per day increased from 22 days in the 1970s to 34 days in the 2010s, a 1.5-fold increase. The urbanized area also surged by 1.7 times. This leads to an increase in impervious surfaces, causing flood damage.

The scale of damage caused by natural disasters also increased more than 40 times during the same period, from an annual average of 34.3 billion KRW to 1.4104 trillion KRW. According to future climate change analysis by specialized institutions, precipitation is expected to increase by 15.6% and rainfall intensity by 13% by 2050, which will likely result in greater disaster damage. The maximum precipitation in one hour has also been increasing since 2000.

To respond to heavy rainfall and climate change and reduce disaster damage, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety has invested an average annual budget of 1.6 trillion KRW since 1994 in disaster prevention projects that improve disaster risk areas, rainwater detention facilities, small streams, steep slopes, and dangerous reservoirs. Ministries such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Environment also promote disaster prevention projects under their respective laws to protect the lives and property of the people.

However, until now, disaster prevention projects have been promoted mainly on a facility-by-facility basis by the responsible ministries and agencies. The timing of budget investments varied, resulting in insufficient functional linkage between facilities. Since only their own facilities were maintained, comprehensive maintenance was not achieved. As a result, damage continues to occur in surrounding areas even after maintenance projects are completed.

To overcome these limitations, the government is planning and promoting the 'Comprehensive Flood and Wind Disaster Living Zone Maintenance Project,' which avoids fragmented disaster prevention projects for individual facilities such as rivers, sewage systems, and pumping stations, and identifies and resolves vulnerabilities such as flooding and collapse caused by wind and flood disasters at the regional level all at once. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety designated five districts last year to implement pilot projects for the 'Comprehensive Flood and Wind Disaster Living Zone Maintenance Project.' In 2020, 15 additional locations are planned to be designated and implemented.

By implementing integrated design and lump-sum construction, the plan aims to shorten construction periods and achieve budget savings. While minimizing the inconvenience and fatigue of local residents caused by prolonged construction, it intends to maximize the investment effect of disaster prevention projects by collectively addressing risk factors and eliminating recurring damage factors every year.

Furthermore, to ensure early establishment of this system, the Natural Disaster Countermeasures Act is being amended. In the future, the project targets and procedures will be clarified, existing disaster prevention project procedures will be completely improved, and the project will be expanded as a comprehensive maintenance project. Budget savings and shortened project periods through the Comprehensive Flood and Wind Disaster Living Zone Maintenance Project are expected to help protect public safety and alleviate inconveniences in daily life. Additionally, the framework of disaster prevention projects, which have been implemented based on ministry convenience, will be completely reformed to enable comprehensive prevention project investments centered on the people and citizens.

Given the nature of the Comprehensive Flood and Wind Disaster Living Zone Maintenance Project, which involves large-scale budgets, there are limits to what the national government can achieve alone. If local governments and residents actively participate, the effectiveness of the comprehensive maintenance project can be maximized to create safer communities.

Yoon Jong-jin, Director of Safety Policy, Ministry of the Interior and Safety

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.