Engaging local communities in disaster management: Perspectives from Korea

In many countries, natural disaster management plans to address events like cyclones, flooding, storm surge and sea level rises have been developed and/ or revised in response to the wider realisation of climate change forecasts over the past few years. Opportunities to learn from overseas initiatives should be availed to search for effective ways of involving local communities in building community resilience and in adapting to natural disasters.

The objective of the paper is to examine the evolving disaster management approach in Korea. The paper will analyse the roles of government as well as the ‘citizen corps’ in disaster management. It dwells on the major challenges of effectively and proactively engaging local communities in disaster management. In particular, the paper seeks to strengthen the ‘bottom up approach’ to disaster management by examining in detail the role of ‘citizen corps’ in disaster management in the context of Korea and exploring references to similar concepts and experiences overseas.