Diagnosis of Coordination Gaps in Flood Management Networks

Flood management performance depends not only on critical infrastructure systems but also on the institutions that coordinate the agencies and facilities prescribed in laws, regulations, and operational manuals. These institutional linkages are rarely examined with the same rigor as physical systems, and coordination gaps typically become visible only after failures. This study presents a network-based framework that enables water resources planners to diagnose such gaps in advance. A total of 784 institutional statements were extracted from 10 Korean flood management policy documents using the Institutional Grammar and converted into a directed actor–infrastructure network. Community detection, inter-cluster edge betweenness, and modularity perturbation experiments were then used to identify weak ties—sparse existing connections that hold governance subsystems together—and structural holes—missing linkages whose creation would most reduce fragmentation. Cross-level ties centered on the Minister of Environment were found to sustain system connectivity, whereas emergency responders such as the Fire Station Chief occupy underused bridging positions. The framework converts institutional text into quantitative evidence for prioritizing coordination reforms and is transferable to other water governance systems.