Spatial Assessment of Urban Heat Vulnerability and Typology-Based Diagnostic Framework for Resilience Strategies in Busan, South Korea

Accelerating climate change has intensified urban heat risks, particularly in coastal cities where urban heat island effects interact with maritime climatic influences, yet spatially explicit frameworks that diagnose heterogeneous vulnerability mechanisms remain limited. Busan, a representative coastal metropolis in South Korea, faces high heatwave vulnerability due to dense urban development, rapid population aging, and limited green space.

This study develops a spatial heat vulnerability assessment framework for Busan that integrates physical thermal conditions and social vulnerability to classify high-risk areas into distinct typologies representing different vulnerability pathways, and to inform tailored resilience strategies.

Satellite-derived thermal indicators, demographic characteristics, infrastructure accessibility, and building conditions were combined to construct composite indices of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.  These indices were then jointly analyzed to derive typology-based vulnerability patterns, and spatial clustering analysis using Local Indicators of Spatial Association was applied to identify statistically significant spatial concentrations.

The results highlight Jung-gu and Sasang-gu as representative high-vulnerability districts characterized by structurally distinct vulnerability mechanisms. Jung-gu exhibits high exposure and sensitivity driven by dense commercial development and limited vegetation, whereas Sasang-gu shows low adaptive capacity due to aging buildings and insufficient green infrastructure, illustrating different pathways through which heatwave vulnerability is produced.

These findings demonstrate that heatwave vulnerability emerges from coupled social and environmental structures, and indicate that typology-specific interventions provide an evidence-based foundation for climate adaptation planning and urban resilience in coastal metropolitan cities facing intensifying heatwave risks.

†This research was supported by "Development of living shoreline technology based on blue carbon science toward climate change adaptation" of Korea Institute of Marine Science & Technology Promotion (KIMST) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (KIMST-20220526)