• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.87-96
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• 2007

In this study, a Ridge Distinction Program was developed to improve the elevation standard, which is one of standards for mountainous districts conversion permission regulated by the Management of Mountainous Districts Act. To distinguish mountainous districts from other land types, this program assumed that the lower end of the mountainous districts is the outlet points where catchment size is 30ha. Also the program used the halfway line between the ridge and the lower end of the mountainous districts to recognize the upper slope areas. To prevent potential errors within the classification process, the areas that were classified as non-mountainous districts by the current forest type map were removed. According to the classification results by using the developed program, the 58% of the mountainous districts ($696,300m^2$) was classified into the upper slope area, while the only 3% of the mountainous districts ($30,956m^2$) were classified by adopting the current standards for the mountainous districts conversion permission. This result shows that the size of the upper slope areas tends to be altered by the standards defining the area. Therefore, for better acceptance of the Ridge Distinction Program in the associated fields, it is necessary to prove the effectiveness of the program and to revise the current standards for the mountainous districts conversion permission.