Busan City Takes Measures to Prevent Sinkhole Accidents Using Employee-Invented Patents

Busan City Hall.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] Busan City will undertake systematic management of ground cavities to prevent sinkhole accidents.

The city is implementing the nation’s first ‘Ground Cavity Management Manual’ by applying the patented job invention of Im Do-hyeong, a road planning officer in Busan City, titled ‘Method for Calculating Road Collapse Damage Index and Deriving Cavity Management Standards Using It.’

Im’s method applies the ‘Road Collapse Damage Index Model,’ which comprehensively assesses the risk of ground cavity collapse by considering both the internal height of the cavity and the load-bearing capacity of the pavement layer.

This method won the bronze prize at the ‘2021 Central Excellent Proposal Contest’ hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and received high evaluations from both domestic and international experts and the public.

Domestically, only the ‘scale of ground subsidence’ has been used as the risk assessment criterion during road ground surveys.

The ground subsidence method was criticized for differing from actual collapse risk survey results in the field and for lacking clear response measures according to risk levels.

The city has changed to Im’s method to systematically evaluate the collapse risk of ground cavities and align the evaluation results with actual risk survey outcomes.

This allows for prioritizing restoration starting from high-risk ground cavities, minimizing sinkhole damage, and enabling economical and eco-friendly cavity management.

Park Hyung-jun, Mayor of Busan, stated, “We will do our best to develop various policies to prevent sinkhole accidents and create a road environment where citizens can travel with peace of mind.”

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