동북아지역의 황사 피해 분석 및 피해저감을 위한 지역 협력방안2 = A Study on the Analysis of Damages from the Northeast Asian Dust and Sand Storm and the Regional Cooperation Strategies

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study is to analyze the occurrence, effects, and damages from the Northeast Asian dust and sand storm (DSS) and to estimate the actual damage costs, especially focusing on the areas of human health and amenity. After analyzing the routes and damages of DSS, this study investigated the possible domestic policy alternatives to suggest regional cooperation strategies for damage reduction. As for the damage cost estimation, damage costs include medical expenses and opportunity costs from time loss and welfare loss due to the discomfort by DSS. The scheme to estimate the damage costs is mainly the contingent valuation method. According to the results from the estimation, damage costs of DSS amounts to 5,922 billion won in Korea in 2002. Among this, medical expenses mainly due to premature mortality account for about 37% and the welfare loss due to discomfort accounts for 34%. The total damage costs account for 4.6 billion US$ and 0.8% of GDP in 2002. With the growing social economic damages of DSS, several mitigating measures of DSS damages have been conducted at the domestic and international level. The most important measure is establishment and operation of DSS monitoring, forecasting and early warning service system for public through setting up cooperation and data sharing system between Korea Ministry of Environment(KMOE) and Korea Meteorological Agency(KMA). Prevention measures of DSS damages have been launched by relevant department of central government and local governments, industrial sectors, households, research institutes and NGOs. At the international level, KMA is establishing a Korea-China joint monitoring and real time data exchange network for DSS. Korean governments and NGOs have implemented afforestation cooperation projects for combating desertification caused by DSS in China and Mongolia. Korean government plays an important role to promote regional cooperation strategies concerning DSS problem in Northeast Asia through the Tripartite Environmental Ministers Meeting(TEMM) among Korea, China and Japan. For enhancing mitigation measures of DSS damages, the following measures should be launched and implemented. DSS monitoring, forecasting and early warning service system need to develop DSS damages monitoring and management fields such as public health, social and economic activities, infrastructure for mitigating DSS damages in domestic. From the regional perspective, mitigation measures of DSS damages should be focused on establishing and operating the bilateral monitoring and early warning network system, namely, the Korea-China joint monitoring and real time data exchange network of DSS as a stable mechanism in the short phase. Multilateral network among countries in Northeast Asia would be established based on the bilateral network system in the long phase. In conclusion, to cope with the serious damages of DSS, DSS need to be treated as a ``non-point long range transboundary air pollution problem``, and it is strongly suggested that ``Cooperation Framework on Controlling DSS in North East Asia`` be established for mitigating DSS damages in Korean peninsula as a long-term regional cooperation strategy.