Advancing Coastal Disaster Risk Assessment in Korea: From Vulnerability Indices to Ocean Resilience

The Republic of Korea has developed a national coastal disaster risk assessment system led by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF), evolving from earlier vulnerability-based approaches toward a quantitative, scenario-based framework. Climate change drivers are incorporated using the IPCC AR6 framework, enabling consistent representation of future coastal hazard conditions. The current assessment derives a Coastal Disaster Risk Index (CDRI) by integrating hazard, exposure, and vulnerability components. These components are quantified using 25 indicators based on 31 observational and modeled datasets, evaluated on a 100 m spatial grid covering the entire national coastline. Indicator weighting and aggregation are determined through a combination of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis and expert-based Delphi surveys. The resulting CDRI is classified into five risk grades (Levels 1–5), with Level 5 representing the highest coastal disaster risk. These results show the methodological evolution of Korea’s coastal disaster risk assessment through changes in indicator composition, spatial resolution, data integration, and risk classification. The mapped risk grades demonstrate how the refined framework captures spatial variability in coastal disaster risk and enables regionally comparable interpretation. Finally, the assessment explores prospective directions for linking risk-based evaluation with ocean resilience concepts, including adaptive capacity and longer-term transformation planning. Although not yet operational, these considerations suggest how coastal disaster risk assessment may evolve beyond risk ranking toward supporting more resilient coastal management.