Assessment of Flood Vulnerability Based on CMIP5 Climate Projections in South Korea

The objective of this article was to assess flood vulnerability based on the representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenarios at city and county levels. A quantile mapping method was adopted to correct bias that is inherent in climate change scenarios. A series of proxy variables related to climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity were chosen to assess flood vulnerability. Proxy variables were standardized using the Z-score method. Principal component analysis was carried out to calculate the weighting of proxy variables. The study area was the Korean peninsula. The spatial resolution was on a city and county basis and the temporal resolution was 1990s, 2025s, 2055s, and 2085s (divided into 1976-2005, 2011-2040, 2041-2070, and 2071-2100). In the spatial comparison, we found that the areas with high-level flood vulnerability increased over time in the central region, including metropolitan areas, and near the southern coast. In the temporal comparison, we found that the RCP4.5 scenario showed a tendency to increase steadily and the RCP8.5 scenario showed a tendency todecrease in the 2055s slightly and increase again in the 2085s. The study findings may provide useful data for the determination of priority for countermeasure development, though robustness of these findings with additional future projections should be established.