• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.453-462
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• 2005

The study deals with surface erosion patterns due to the development of cropland toward hillslope and hilltop in the Oncheon-gun, pyeongbuk province and Nampo city of west coast area in the North Korea, using Quick Bird satellite images with 60cm resolution. In North Korea, for national economic difficult after 1980 year, newly developed croplands have been along the gentle hillslope, in which it is possible for individual man power different from the tideland which needs large scaled man-power and equipment. The new croplands are named Darakbat(terraced farm with embankment) and Bitalbat(titled farm developed on the original hill slope), neighboring with orchard and grouped settlement in lower valley. For supplying agricultural water, irrigation ditches and temporal crop storages have been constructed, connecting Darakbat, Bitalbat and orchard. These cropland developments have caused surface erosion composed of 3 types such as pit, linear and headward erosion, together with rill and gully. Owing to poor management of cropland and irrigation system, topsoil erosion and, collapse and sedimentation of ditch and pool, caused the decrease of agricultural productivity. These analysis using Quick Bird images can suggest original raw data about geographical facts on North Korea agriculture and help to recover their agricultural system and plan future national unified land.