2003, Vol.39, No.

The Korea Spatial Planning Review 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.2

pISSN : 1229-8638
https://journal.kci.go.kr/krihs

Development law and environment law in Korea have kept system, adopting the result of spatial assessment directly as methods for ecological urban management. The result of these spatial environmental assessments is a foundation of the connecting system between spatial planning and environmental planning to develop sustainable further studies. On this premise, this study was to suggest the applicable alternatives that are able to be an effective method of assessments for ecological urban management. Analyzing its disadvantages, advantages, and characteristics, after reviewing the kinds and contents of spatial assessment, has been used currently on process in Korea. These studies on model development, a major issue, should keep being achieved as systematic environment planning, which could be inter-related with development planning. Therefore, it is desirable that the result of assessments on the developed spaces would be adopted from considering the domestic conditions for environmental development planning and management step by step. Also for environmentally friendly spatial planning and management, it is a way to go to consider the environment planning and ecological assessment on the detailed planning step at the level of district and zone practically. However, many assessment maps in Korea are not enough informative ecologically at the applicable level on this step. Prior to these detailed information, if the result of spatial planning at the present national level would be used concretely at the level of urban comprehensive planning, this is to be also a fundamental approach for the ecological spatial planning in the given situation.

This study aims to present viable alternatives to minimize the disastrous effects of flood through the empirical analysis of the flood in Gangneung area. This study was proceeded under the hypothesis that the defence policy against recurring floods seems ineffective and unpractical due to the lack of reasonable recognition on the natural disaster and the misleading management of artificial resources. In reality, most local governments experiencing the recurring floods focus on recovery policy such as reconstructions, financial supports, and compensations for the damaged area. Although the damages from the flood can be said to come directly from the relentless falling of heavy rains, the heavy rains itself dose not lead to the unbearable damages. The damages are rather triggered by the erratic change of channel and flooding of the banks in the process of the water draining down to the sea through the rivers or waterways. Accordingly, it is possible to reduce the loss from the flood by the analysis of the causes of the alternations of channel and overflowed banks. We ourselves reproduce the causes of flood, which is linked to the mismanagement of potential resources that can play supporting or elastic roles under the unforeseeable situations. That is, natural disaster like flood can be

The purpose of this paper is to examine the framework and the methodology of the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) developed by The World Economic Forums(WEF) Global Leaders for Tomorrow Environment Task Force. The process of this paper is to present some significant critics about the ESI and to suggest its improvement in measuring the environmental sustainability. The ESI is to assess the ability of countries across the world to meet the environmental needs of their people and to achieve environmentally sustainable development. The 2002 ESI study included 142 counties. Population, area, variable coverage, and indicator coverage are considered as selection criteria. South Korea has quite poor ESI score of 35.9 (136th overall). The ESI is an attempt to quantify the progress towards the environmental sustainability through a single meaningful index. While the validity of the index is reduced by insufficient data and lack of harmonization as well as inadequate data quality, the improved ESI plays an important role as an information tool to policy-makers, scientists, and the public. Some significant critics are suggested as follows: data limitations, unsystematic architecture of index, methodological issues such as unrealistic weight, ambiguous conceptual framework. To improve the ESI, it is necessary to evolve data gathering and data creation, to develop more sophisticated methods for measuring and analyzing information, to select more plausible indicators and variables representing the sustainability, and to link the strategy of sustainable development to ESI.