| Title |
A Study of Power Law Distribution of Korean Disaster and Identification of Focusing Events |
| Authors |
김용균(Kim, Yongkyun) ; 김상필(Kim, Sang Pil) ; 조형식(Cho, Hyoung-Sig) ; 손홍규(Sohn, Hong-Gyoo) |
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.12652/Ksce.2016.36.1.0181 |
| Keywords |
멱함수;재난대응;사회적 충격사건 Power law;Disaster response;Focusing events |
| Abstract |
Improvements in disaster management has become a global necessity because the magnitude of disasters is intensifying in parallel with the increased disaster damage. The disaster risk in Korea is also increasing due to the emergence of new types of disaster; such as the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, the increase of complex disasters, and the heightened probability of a catastrophic event due to climate change. This paper aimed to identify the disaster loss-frequency relationship from 1948 to 2014 in Korea by using four types of variables. In addition, this paper found major disasters that resulted in the reformation of disaster response organizations, and inputted the deaths and economic loss attributed to those disasters into the disaster loss-frequency graph. The research result substantiated that the disaster loss-frequency relationship in Korea follows the Power Law and found the coefficients of each Power Function. Additionally, this paper found that most of the reformations of disaster response organizations happened after major disasters that concentrated societies attention and anger due to the high human and economic impact; such events are labelled as "focusing events." These focusing events, with the characteristics of a low probability and high impact, are located in the long tail of the Power Law Distribution. This paper suggests that the effective public policy for disaster response needs to be developed by paying attention to 'low probability and high impact' focusing events that are located in the long tail of the Power Law Distribution. |