Lee, G.; Choi, J., and Jun, K.S., 2017. MCDM approach for identifying urban flood vulnerability under social environment and climate change. In: Lee, J.L.; Griffiths, T.; Lotan, A.; Suh, K.-S., and Lee, J. (eds.), The 2nd International Water Safety Symposium. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 79, pp. 209–213. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

This study examines a method for conducting flood vulnerability assessments based on urban environmental and social characteristics. In other words, the purpose of this study is to analyze the characterization of flood damage to a city and determine assessment factors, thereby establishing a vulnerability assessment procedure. In order to consider urban environments in the future, the trend for socio-economic changes and changes in rainfall patterns due to climate change are included. The established assessment procedure consists of the following three steps: criteria and weights determination using Delphi and Entropy methods, data acquisition and construction of database, and vulnerability quantification and priority decision making. Future precipitation is estimated from the RCP scenario, and the indexes that indicate social and economic changes in a region, such as population change and urbanization, are calculated using a scenario based on the data from Statistics Korea. In this study, the assessment method was applied to the Dorimcheon basin in Seoul, Korea, where inland flooding caused substantial damage in 2011. It was found that the influence of increased precipitation (due to climate change) on flooding risk was less than that of the increase in vulnerability factors caused by social and economic development. The approach used in this study can suggest preferred regions or objects for urban flood management by considering characteristics of each region and recognizing intrinsic vulnerability factors in advance.