Abstract for:Wetland City Planning for the Controversy Surrounding Water Levels

In 2015, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature started the ‘Wetland City’ initiative to manage urban wetlands from a social-ecological system perspective. Changnyong-gun, South Korea, one of the Wetland City candidates, has strictly conserved wetlands without any consideration of social systems, which has caused controversy concerning the water level and has resulted in social conflict, economic stagnation, and environmental degradation. The purpose of this study is to suggest strategies for Wetland City planning through analyzing social and ecological problem structure by system dynamics analysis in Upo Wetland, Chanyong-gun. To do this, this study was conducted through the system dynamics analysis process of ‘Dynamic thinking,’ ‘Causal thinking,’ ‘Closed-loop thinking,’ and ‘Discovery of strategy.’ In the dynamic thinking, we found four issues, including ‘Willow thinning,’ ‘Drain pump competition,’ ‘Fishery structure,’ and ‘Increasing domestic water demand.’ In the causal thinking, causal loop diagrams of each issue were constructed by finding feedback that characterizes each dynamic problem. In the closed-loop thinking, we conducted simple modeling of the ‘Willow thinning’ issue and analyzed the structures and behaviors of the Wetland City. In the discovery of strategy, we determined leverage points and management options to derive strategies for sustainable Wetland City planning.