Quantitative assessment of national resilience: A case study of Mount Paektu eruption scenarios on South Korea

This study estimated South Korea's resilience to volcanic eruption scenarios by summing direct and indirect losses in industrial sectors, health damages, and costs to clean roads of volcanic ash. This resilience assessment aimed to compare eruption scenarios from a socio-economic perspective and prepare mitigation strategies. Direct losses were estimated using vulnerability functions in agriculture and interruption times in air transportation and manufacturing. Indirect losses were estimated using input-output tables on South Korea. Health damages were estimated using the unit damage cost of particulate matter studied in the European Union and the United States. Resilience assessment results depended on eruption scenarios and the locations of vulnerable items. The industrial sectors had indirect losses that were larger than direct losses, suggesting the inclusion of indirect losses in economic impact assessments of natural hazards. This study indicated that the community resilience cost index (CRCI) is useful in assessing community resilience to hazards. The CRCI quantified the economic differences in eruption scenarios, and could lead an optimal hazard mitigation to enhance resilience. The CRCI can be applied to other hazards by defining and measuring losses and recovery strategies using appropriate data and to develop mitigation strategies by defining the interaction between losses and recovery costs.