Author(s)

S.J. PARK, D.W. KIM, J.H. KIM, J.H. CHUNG & J.S. LEE

Abstract

The ability to predict the future was considered a very important factor for humanity since long ago. Future prediction, which was non-scientific, took on significant developments with the advancement of science and technology. Nevertheless, predicting the future is still not an easy task. Therefore, it is more essential to develop diverse future scenarios for establishing policies with a clear vision on the personal, or even national levels rather than attempting to precisely predict a specific future event.

Particularly, future research plays a crucial role in the field of disaster management to prevent national crises. Future disasters could also result in an unimaginable scale of damages due to the complex network development of our society. Thus, it is necessary to develop scenarios in advance from the perspective of potential damages  caused by disasters.

Future scenario development largely comprises quantitative and qualitative methods, which are applied identically in the field of disaster management. Quantitative method is developed using various statistical methods based on numerical data, while qualitative method is developed based on the intellect of a group of experts. In this study, the latter method is used because of the unpredictable nature of disasters. Furthermore, in order to provide a solution for the biased opinions that may occur from the group of experts, big data is used to propose a method for developing future disaster scenarios. The results from this method are preferred to efficiently develop future disaster scenarios, because the opinions of the group of experts are mostly biased.

Keywords

big data, cold wave, future disaster, future scenario