Yangyang County Digitizes 629km of Underground Facilities: "Proactive Measures Against Sinkholes and Underground Accidents"

Yangyang County Invests 3.74 Billion Won
Five-Year Project to Be Completed by 2026
Establishing an Integrated GIS-Based Management System for Water and Sewage Pipelines

Yangyang County in Gangwon Province is accelerating the implementation of its underground facilities digitization project, bringing it to the final stage this year to prevent underground safety accidents such as ground subsidence (sinkholes).

The promotion of the underground facility digitization project in Yangyang County. Provided by Yangyang County

The county announced that it has been carrying out the 'Underground Facilities Digitization Expansion Project' from 2022 to 2026, investing a total of 3,739.5 million won over five years to digitize information on 629.6 kilometers of underground facilities—including water supply pipelines, sewage pipelines, and road infrastructure—using a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform.

The Underground Facilities Digitization Expansion Project involves precise surveying of the locations and attributes of various underground infrastructures to build a database (DB), serving as a core initiative to fundamentally strengthen the underground safety management system.

In particular, with a recent increase in ground subsidence accidents nationwide caused by ruptures in aging water and sewage pipelines, the need for precise management of underground facilities has grown significantly. According to the National Land Safety Management Agency's '2025 Underground Safety Statistical Yearbook,' 45% of the 867 ground subsidence incidents that occurred between 2020 and 2024 were found to be due to damage to sewage pipelines.

To date, the county has completed the construction of foundational data for 484.1 kilometers in areas such as Ganghyeon-myeon, Seo-myeon, Sonyang-myeon, and part of Hyeonbuk-myeon. In 2026, it plans to digitize an additional 145.5 kilometers in parts of Hyeonbuk-myeon and Hyeonnam-myeon, thereby completing the five-year project.

Once this project is completed, the exact locations of underground facilities will be identified in advance, which will help prevent accidents from reckless excavation and enable rapid response in the event of an incident.

The county plans to further improve the digital accuracy of underground facility information in the future, shorten disaster response times, and further strengthen urban safety management capabilities.

An official from Yangyang County stated, "Accurate underground facility information is a critical foundation for securing the golden time in disaster response," adding, "Through this project, we expect Yangyang County to take a leap forward as a safer and smarter city."

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