Kim Donghyun, Lee Junbeom
Department of Urban Planning and Engineering, Pusan National University, Republic of Korea.
Korea Environment Institute, Republic of Korea.
Saf Health Work. 2020 Mar;11(1):1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.shaw.2019.10.004. Epub 2019 Nov 6.
As the impact of climate change intensifies, exposure to heat stress will grow, leading to a loss of work capacity for vulnerable occupations and affecting individual labor decisions. This study estimates the future work capacity under the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 scenario and discusses its regional impacts on the occupational structure in the Republic of Korea.
The data utilized for this study constitute the local wet bulb globe temperature from the Korea Meteorological Administration and information from the Korean Working Condition Survey from the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute of Korea. Using these data, we classify the occupations vulnerable to heat stress and estimate future changes in work capacity at the local scale, considering the occupational structure. We then identify the spatial cluster of diminishing work capacity using exploratory spatial data analysis.
Our findings indicate that 52 occupations are at risk of heat stress, including machine operators and elementary laborers working in the construction, welding, metal, and mining industries. Moreover, spatial clusters with diminished work capacity appear in southwest Korea.
Although previous studies investigated the work capacity associated with heat stress in terms of climatic impact, this study quantifies the local impacts due to the global risk of climate change. The results suggest the need for mainstreaming an adaptation policy related to work capacity in regional development strategies.
随着气候变化的影响加剧，热应激暴露将增加，导致脆弱职业的工作能力丧失，并影响个人劳动决策。本研究估计了代表性浓度路径8.5情景下未来的工作能力，并讨论了其对大韩民国职业结构的区域影响。
本研究使用的数据包括韩国气象厅的当地湿球黑球温度以及韩国职业安全与健康研究所的韩国工作条件调查信息。利用这些数据，我们对易受热应激影响的职业进行分类，并考虑职业结构，估计地方尺度上未来工作能力的变化。然后，我们使用探索性空间数据分析来识别工作能力下降的空间聚类。
我们的研究结果表明，52种职业存在热应激风险，包括建筑、焊接、金属和采矿业的机器操作员和体力劳动者。此外，工作能力下降的空间聚类出现在韩国西南部。
尽管以往的研究从气候影响的角度调查了与热应激相关的工作能力，但本研究量化了全球气候变化风险造成的地方影响。结果表明，有必要将与工作能力相关的适应政策纳入区域发展战略的主流。
