How Incheon is Transforming Public Facilities into Disaster Management Hubs: Key Strategies Revealed

As climate change increases the complexity of urban disasters, experts are calling for maximizing public facilities’ roles as disaster-response hubs and building an integrated urban disaster management system that covers all phases of emergency management.

On the 11th, the Incheon Research Institute published the findings of a commissioned study titled Strategies to Enhance Urban Disaster Management Functions Using Public Facilities.

The research team identified public facilities as critical nodes for strengthening urban disaster response because climate-driven events have become more frequent, complex and wide-ranging. Public facilities are distributed across the city, offering residents equitable access and convenience.

In Incheon, rising sea levels have heightened flood risk while urban heat island effects have intensified in high-density development zones. These overlapping hazards require differentiated, locality-specific countermeasures.

The team proposed three core strategies to enhance disaster-management capabilities within existing public facilities without building new, dedicated structures.

First, they recommend upgrading evacuation facilities to reduce disparities in local access and to improve usability for vulnerable populations. They also propose establishing multilingual guidance systems and related measures to raise overall response capacity.

Second, the researchers advocate creating disaster-resilience parks that function as ordinary urban green spaces in normal times but can immediately shift roles during crises to provide evacuation, relief, temporary shelter and distribution of supplies.

Third, the study emphasized proactive flood management through Low Impact Development (LID) techniques, which restore natural water-cycle processes to address the limitations of sewer-centered flood control.

The report urges installing permeable pavement and rooftop greening at public facilities to reduce stormwater runoff and build a multilayered defense system. It also calls for developing tailored LID design standards that reflect local conditions, such as flood risk in low-lying coastal areas.

Research Fellow Cho Seong-yun said, “This study will provide the foundation for building an integrated disaster management system. Completing a public-facility-based disaster framework that links facilities, institutions, budgets and governance will make the city safer.”

/By Seong-won Byun, Reporter bsw906@incheonilbo.com