Disaster Risk Management in the Republic of Korea

Overview and Historical Review.- Disaster Theory.- Disasters from 1948 to 2015 in Korea and Power-law Distribution.- Focusing Events in the Power-law Distribution.- Disaster Response Policy Change in the Wake of Major Disasters, Labeled Focusing Events.- Disaster Resilient Future in Korea.

Yong-kyun Kim is the Director of the Disaster Preparedness and Coordination Division for the Ministry of Public Safety and Security in the Republic of Korea. He has worked closely with national and local governments in Asia and Africa, NGOs, and international organizations including the United Nations during his 20-year professional career in the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Ministry of Public Safety and Security of Korea, the National Emergency Management Agency of Korea, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency of the USA. His research interests are disaster risk management, institutional reforms for effective disaster response, emergency management in complex situations, and climate change adaptation. He has published several articles in the field of disaster risk management and community-based water management. 

 

Hong-Gyoo Sohn was a senior research associate of the NASA-sponsored Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Project (RAMP) at the Byrd Polar Research Center of Ohio State University, USA. For the successful accomplishment of RAMP he received the NASA Group Achievement Award. He has been involved with various GIS and remote sensing projects in natural disaster-modeling techniques utilizing national databases, damage identification techniques using geospatial image information, and more. He is a full professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Yonsei University, Korea. He has worked closely with local governments and international organizations, including UNISDR and UNESCAP. He is also working as an expert in "The open-ended intergovernmental expert working group on targets and indicators relating to disaster risk reduction" as a follow-up activity of the Sendai Framework 2015-2030.