Quantitative Risk Assessment for Beach Drowning Management

The beach is recognized as the most important resource because it provides the best recreational amenity to tourists. However, the beach safety aspect is getting more relevant, because the drowning risks all over the world are much too high and do not decrease enough. Especially, drowning is a major public health problem with substantial personal, societal, and economic costs, each year many people drown at the beach and many more are seriously injured. In Korea, most of the beach safety services belong to personnel rescue services. In contrast, Australia and the United Kingdom have developed several practical integrated beach risk management programs and safety systems. In this study, we have carried out field survey for beach safety on 4 popular beaches along the Korean coast, and conducted a beach risk audit and prepared a report. In addition, we developed a quantitative risk assessing method with reference to the Australian method. In this method, three parameters that were related to emergency rescue factor, risk avoidance factor and safety preparedness factor, are included in the risk assessment for management purpose. The purpose of coastal drowning risk assessment is to make decisions, based on the outcomes of risk analysis, about which risks need treatment priorities. From these results, we will implement preferred treatment options or an action plan for managing the beach safety in order to minimize the risk of injury by drowning.