A review of climate change adaptation policies applied to landscape planning and design in Korea

This paper reviews how recent climate change policies in Korea have affected practices in landscape planning and design. By illuminating the gaps between government policies on climate change and actual practices in planning and design, the study aims to provide useful directions for future research and practices. The primary problems we found are as follows: (1) the government’s recent aggressive climate change policies have partly resulted in an adverse effect on the environment; (2) planning and design tools to implement climate change policies do not tend to consider local characteristics and different biophysical and sociocultural contexts; (3) climate change policies in Korea developed by different governmental departments are not coordinated well enough to effectively meet the policy goals; and (4) design tools or guidelines intended to aid the implementation of climate change policies at site level must be improved through the use of creative ideas and empirical tests. For future research, we recommend hunting for critical evidence as to why climate change policies are not implemented effectively in a particular local context, and determining how such failures can be overcome by applying adequate measures in planning and design.