International Journal of Human & Disaster

Agroforestry is a very important industry that provides people with food resources. However, the forestry households of South Korea are facing a crisis that will have critical impacts on the provision of food resources in the nation. This study set out to examine problems with the forestry households of the nation by looking into their current management and conducting an interview with forestry household managers. It also aimed to search for plans to overcome the issues faced by forestry households and promote the development of the forest industry. This study examined the current population of forestry households, the age of managers, the number of forestry household members, and the current income of forestry households as well as the age of forestry managers, the members of forestry households, and the income trends of the forestry industry and anticipated that the phenomena of forestry managers leaving the industry and forestry households shrinking would continue in the long run. An interview was conducted with 11 forestry household managers around the nation to examine the actual management of forestry households. They pointed out such major problems as difficulties with securing clients, issues with the gathering and storage of forest products, and challenges with product distribution and sales. Based on these findings, the study proposed the following measures to help the forestry households overcome their economic crisis in the nation: first, they should form a cooperative of forestry households to create an opportunity for the forest industry to evolve into a 6th industry; and secondly, the government should provide a variety of supportive programs to ensure the vitalization of distribution.

Among the ways to improve the treatment of firefighters, firefighter retirement management is important, and to look at the previous studies, many results derived show that firefighters are worried about life after retirement because there is poor practice of retirement management due to lack of retirement management system. Thus, this study attempts to examine the retirement management system of public firefighters to improve the treatment for firefighters, and to investigate current problems and future improvement strategies. To improve the retirement management of Korean fire bodies, the following should be urgently improved. First, the public firefighter’s retirement management system should be settled. Currently, in the case of firefighting organizations, the regulations on retirement management are insufficient, and there is also a lack of legal and institutional arrangements for dedicated organizations, personnel and/or programs. Because of this, public firefighters are complaining about the inconvenience that they should do their own retirement management themselves. Since the retirement management system is so insufficient as compared to other private companies and general public officers and police officers, the legal system for firefighter retirement management should be provided first. Second, it is necessary to establish a special organization that specializes only in retirement management in the firefighting organization, and it is necessary to employ the appropriate personnel for the firefighting retirement management organization and operate various retirement management programs. Third, it is necessary to maintain a cooperative relationship with other organizations' retirement management systems, such as introducing private retirement management programs and attracting beneficial lectures, by benchmarking organizations that are currently performing well in retirement management such as private companies. This is because retirement management of firefighting organizations is at the basic stage, and it is considered that the linkage with other organizations will have a synergy effect. Lastly, firefighters have insufficient retirement management owing to the difficulty managing every single day without thinking about the future because they have difficulty in working conditions and environment. Therefore, if the firefighters' working environment and treatment are urgently improved, it is judged that there is room for mind enough to consider retirement management.

Chemical accidents continue to happen since the hydrofluoric acid leak in Gumi in 2012, and people are voicing their opinions to highlight the importance and need of a prevention and management system for chemical accidents. This study thus set out to review the risk management plan under the Chemicals Control Act in the nation and the cases of risk management planning(RMP) at the US Environmental Protection Agency, searching for measures to improve residents' scattering plans based on risk management plan of the South Korean government. In South Korea, businesses handling toxic chemicals should provide residents in neighboring areas with the information about such chemicals once a year to ensure their right to know. The method of providing the information is, however, dependent on the homepage of the concerned local government or the concerned business, which means there are limitations with the residents' perceiving the information. The Emergency Planning Community Right-to-Know Act(EPCRA) was enacted in the U.S.A. The EPA asks each state to form a local emergency planning committee(LEPC) whose members are appointed by 13 groups. EPCRA offers a chance for a third party to participate in risk management, which reflects the greater importance and weight on the education and participation of the public rather than the interventions based on the government's order and control. Local social groups, environment organizations, and labor groups can ask for the information about toxic industrial substances col-lectively. Based on the review results of plans for residents' scattering in the American risk management plan, the present study made a couple of proposals to improve the plan for residents' scattering in the risk management plan of South Korea. First, there is a need to form a consultative group to promote autonomous risk responses among civilians and encourage its activities. Secondly, there is a need to establish a mutual support system to guarantee residents' right to know and help them perform the duty of seeking information.

The purpose of this study was to examine the level of knowledge on hand washing, practice of it(hand washing frequencies before meals, after discharge and after going out) and hand washing promotion experience based on the 2015 community health survey data for the region of Gyeongnam in an effort to determine the hand washing knowledge of local residents, their hand washing practice and promotion experience. As for the level of hand washing knowledge, the respondents who were female, who dwelled in urban communities, who were younger, whose academic background was better, whose monthly mean household income was larger and who engaged in economic activities were more knowledgeable. Concerning the level of practice, the respondents who were female, who resided in urban regions, who were younger, who were better educated, whose monthly mean household income was higher and who engaged in economic activities put all the three items into practice. In addition, the respondents with hand washing promotion experience were ahead of the others in terms of both knowledge and practice, and there were positive correlations among all the level of hand washing knowledge, the level of practice and promotion experience. Therefore the easiest way to prevent the frequent occurrence of contagious diseases caused by an increase in overseas trips and climate change and to promote individual people's health is hand washing. Sustained monitoring and the development of a variety of educational media and publicity methods are all required to encourage individuals to wash their hands in the right manner.

This research observed the discussion about the existing disaster management policy, and present the aim set of the budget for natural digester prevention by government. Like mentioned above, a recognition of necessity of digester management in Korea is start from increasing, diversity, large scale and etc. of digesters. But the investment for digester prevention by central government and local government is stopping in support of the rehabilitation expense, but still can’t set the scope of aim setting of budget investment for digester management and prevention and minimization of damage. Additionally, the public policy like the cost-benefit analysis and etc. also do not have its analysis of evaluation. This research indicated the limitation of budget investment in digester management policy and examined the approach method and approach direction for investment in disaster management and prevention business.

The various disasters that are happening all over the world are becoming increasingly difficult challenges. The management of the disaster with inherent attributes of risk and uncertainty is recognized by almost everyone as a public issue that governments must respond to immediately. As disasters have long and short-term effects not only on human and material damage but also on the public health safety net and social and political settings, an effective management system for disasters is important. It can be said that the disaster management work in the local government at the forefront of protecting the lives and property of the people is very important. For large-scale disasters beyond the scope of local government, central government’s personnel and budget support is needed, but the primary response is to be conducted quickly and flexibly at the local government level. Therefore, it is important to improve disaster management capacity of public servants who perform disaster management work in local government, and education and training for their capacity building is important.