Author(s): Miguel Enrico Robles; Yugyeong Oh; Chiny Vispo; Md Tashdedul Haque; Lee-Hyung Kim
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Climate change adaptation; Exposure indicators; Extreme weather; Green infrastructure
Abstract: Climate change adaptation technologies (CCAT) such as stormwater green infrastructure (GI) and low impact development (LID) have been previously found to be effective in treating stormwater runoff and promoting infiltration. However, the resilience of such technologies to extreme weather, particularly on urban areas in a temperate climate zone, is yet to be explored thoroughly. In this study, the extreme weather in the major cities of South Korea was characterized through an extensive statistical analysis of 30-year long daily meteorological data from the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) and a comprehensive review of previous studies on the performance of CCATs was conducted to identify possible indicators of risk and exposure for the resilience of urban CCATs. The characteristics of extreme weather in the studied cities varied in accordance to location and imperviousness. The most number of heat wave days per year was consistently observed in Daegu, in which the highest observed value was 60 days. A slightly increasing trend in terms of heat wave days was also noted in the mentioned city, as a Pearson correlation (r) of 0.12 was obtained. Busan, Daegu, and Jeju exhibited the highest 99th and 95th percentile daily maximum rainfall intensity (RI) among the studied cities. A significant difference between the 99th and 90th percentiles of maximum RI was noted, indicating that while extreme precipitation events are statistically less common, the severity of such events can be particularly high. Histograms of relative humidity (RH) reveal that the RH distribution in Busan, Ulsan, and Jeju are more even, in comparison to Seoul, Daejeon, and Daegu, which displayed a right-skewed distribution. In the right-skewed histograms, an RH of 30-35% was found to occur most frequently. After conducting a comprehensive review of related literature, identified exposure indicators for the resilience of CCATs were identified. Exposure indicators for permeable pavements included extremely high and low temperature and intense precipitation, while indicators for the resilience of green roofs and green walls were identified as high relative humidity, extreme drought, high and low temperature. The identified indicators were found to reduce the performance of the studied CCATs. Impacted performance parameters included thermal reduction, plant survival, deformation resistance, and overall stability. The results for both the extreme weather characterization and indicator identification are seen as a potential reinforcement to CCAT design criteria, which can be applied to improve the resilience of such technologies to extreme weather and climate change.
Year: 2024