Abstract

On average, three tropical cyclones (TCs) affect the Republic of Korea each year, causing extensive damage. To alleviate the TC-induced disasters, the Korean government has invested nearly 4% of its annual budget in recent decades in prevention efforts; however, the effectiveness of this costly program has not been evaluated. This study determined whether any evidence shows a reduced vulnerability to TCs in Korea over 1979–2010 by utilizing multi-linear regression. Homelessness, casualties, and property losses were individually examined. These explained variables were normalized into the socio-economic circumstances of 2005 before the regression to eliminate the effect of changing exposure by dealing with population and wealth at provincial levels. Three potential explanatory variables based on nationwide weather-station data were considered, including the maximum wind, maximum rainfall, and number of affected stations over each TC’s damaging period. In addition, the annual per capita income, showing a quasi-linear increasing tendency, was used as an additional explanatory variable to examine how vulnerability is altered. The results revealed that each empirical model of homelessness, casualties, and property losses can account for 47%, 57%, and 57% of each variance, respectively, which is highest when considering all four explanatory variables. Consistently negative coefficients of the per capita income terms for all damage types suggest that the vulnerability to TCs has been significantly reduced. This finding appears to be partly the result of the national prevention effort, although it also can be attributed to other unintended adaptation factors, such as building codes, industrial structures, and land use.