• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.262-269
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• 2022

A distribution survey was conducted from 2018 to 2020 to evaluate the distribution status, habitat characteristics, and extinction threat of the short ninespine stickleback Pungitius kaibarae (Gasterosteidae). Literature reports of P. kaibarae distribution have been sorted by each period, 1980~1996, 1997~2005, and 2007~2017, and the samples were collected in 32, 43, and 64 stations for each period. Among the 75 streams and 193 sampling sites investigated during the study period, 1,400 P. kaibarae individuals were collected from 26 streams at 39 sites. The main habitat of P. kaibarae was downstream or brackish water zones with a low altitude, slow water velocity, and many aquatic plants. The main reasons for the decline in population size were assumed to be drought and flood, river work for flood restoration and river maintenance, bridges construction, and predation by the exotic fish species Micropterus salmoides. Previous evidence reported a 42.6% reduction in occupancy within 10 years, a decline in habitat quality, and the spread and impact of the exotic fish species Micropterus salmoides. Therefore, P. kaibarae is now considered a Vulnerable (VU A2ace) species based on the IUCN Red List categories and criteria. Therefore, P. kaibarae should be redesignated as an endangered species by the Ministry of Environment and systematically managed.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.117-128
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• 2023

Tree dieback in Geumgang pine forest has occurred in Uljin and Bonghwa since the 2010s. In order to identify status of tree dieback and prevent further damages, a monitoring project for tree dieback in Geumgang pine forest had been launched by Southern regional office of forest service in 2020. This study was conducted to understand the characteristics of tree dieback occurrence and assess the high risk areas using the occurrence data in the project. Pine tree dieback occurred frequently in areas with mountain ridges in high elevation, dry south-facing slopes, mature stands, and high temperature rise in winter. Furthermore, the result of risk assessment showed that 6.2 percent(5,294ha) of Geumgang pine forest(85,000 ha) in total study area are at high risk of tree dieback. As the pine trees in the high risk area are prone to experience the dieback due to temperature and drought-related extreme weather events, regular forest management activities are needed to reduce the drought stress of pine trees. Forest health management for the pine forest with high protection priority can be also useful strategy to counter the risk of decline. This results can be used as the basic information for the adaptive forest management to climate change.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.69-80
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• 2021

This study tried to suggest improvement measures by discovering problems or matters requiring improvement among the annual regional safety evaluation systems. Briefly introducing the structure and contents of the study, which is the introduction, describes the regional safety evaluation method newly applied by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security in 2020. Utilization plans were also introduced according to the local safety level that was finally evaluated by the local government. In this paper, various views of previous researchers related to regional safety are summarized and described. In addition, problems were drawn in the composition of the index of local safety, the method of calculating the index, and the application of the current index. Next, the problems of specific regional safety evaluation indicators were analyzed and solutions were presented. First, "Number of semi-basement households" is replaced with "Number of households receiving basic livelihood" of 「Social Vulnerability Index」 in the field of disaster risk factors is replaced with "the number of households receiving basic livelihood". In addition, the "Vinyl House Area" is evaluated by replacing "the number of households living in a Vinyl House, the number of container households, and the number of households in Jjok-bang villages" with data. Second, in the management and evaluation of habitual drought disaster areas, local governments with a water supply rate of 95% or higher in Counties, Cities, and Districts are treated as "missing". This is because drought disasters rarely occur in the metropolitan area and local governments that have undergone urbanization. Third, the activities of safety sheriffs, safety monitor volunteers, and disaster safety silver monitoring groups along with the local autonomous prevention foundation are added to the evaluation of the evaluation index of 「Regional Autonomous Prevention Foundation Activation」 in the field of response to disaster prevention measures. However, since the name of the local autonomous disaster prevention organization may be different for each local government, if it is an autonomous disaster prevention organization organized and active for disaster prevention, it would be appropriate to evaluate the results by summing up all of its activities. Fourth, among the Scorecard evaluation items, which is a safe city evaluation tool used by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction(UNDRR), the item "preservation of natural buffers to strengthen the protection functions provided by natural ecosystems" is borrowed, which is closely related to natural disasters. The Scorecard evaluation is an assessment index that focuses on improving the disaster resilience of local governments while carrying out the campaign "Creating cities resilient to climate crises and disasters" emphasized by UNDRR. Finally, the names of "regional safety level" and "local safety index" are similar, so the term of local safety level is changed to "natural disaster safety level" or "natural calamity safety level". This is because only the general public can distinguish the local safety level from the local safety index.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.10 no.E
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• pp.371-386
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• 1994

Ecological examinations of the radial growth Patterns of pine trees(Pinus densiflora Sieb. et Zucc) growing on Mt. Namsan in central Seoul were made to test a Proposition that the pine trees decline due to the influence of air pollution and acid rain, which was proposed by some researchers in Korea, and the potential effects of current level of air pollutants to the growth of the Pine trees in central Seoul have been speculated. Tree-rings of 40 trees sampled at 3 sites of Mt. Namsan were prepared and examined using a Computer-aided Tree-Ring Measuring System at Kookmin University, Korea. Air Pollutant data collected by the Ministry of Environment( MOE ) and the Forestry Research Institute(FRI) were used to infer the general conditions of the environment. Correlation analysis was applied to the data set of tree growth and the other environmental factors. General information derived from the close examination of the tree-rings and the data on air pollution, drought and the other biological conditions suggested that the growth of the pine trees was severely affected by the occurrence of drought(climatic variation), the prevalence of the pine leaf gall midges(insects), and the suppression by the black locust trees(Robinia pseudo-acacia L.) (competition among trees). While the current condition of air pollution in Seoul cannot be categorized as good, the concentrations of air pollutants are not so high as to cause acute damages to the trees. In addition, while the data of rain acidity showed episodic low PHs of under 4.0, the average of them is far less acidic than those which were observed in either northeastern United States or central Europe, where the decline of trees were not solely attributed to any of the air pollutants. Considering the sequential facts that one of the most important environmental factors that affect the growth of trees is weather condition of the forest that the proposition of the decline of the pine trees was made without careful examination of the growth patterns and past growth history of them as well as the complex influences of many other factors including the weather conditions to the growth of trees, and that no objective explanation has been made on the causal relationships between the current condition of air pollution and the growth of the trees, such a proposition should be evaluated as invalid for the explanation of tree growth on Mt. Namsan in central Seoul, Korea. The author evaluates the factors of air pollution (including acid rain) as the predisposing factors, which may have the Potentials to chronically affect the tree growth at the forest ecosystem on Mt. Namsan for a long period of time. Ecosystem ecological studies should be further carried out to carefully explain both the functional and the structural aspects of the ecosystem processes, which include the biogeochemistry and the long-term changes of soil conditions as well as the growth of the other tree species on the mountain.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.38 no.2 s.112
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• pp.196-206
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• 2005

The fish community in the mid-upper region of Gam Stream was examined seasonally from 2001 to 2003 in order to perform an environmental impact assessment prior to a construction of Gamcheon Multipurpose Dam. Additional investigation was conducted in August 2004 to confirm the fish fauna reported and to examine the ecological characteristics of Zacco temminckii population. The total number of fish caught from the study sites was 1,081 fish representing 5 families 14 species. There were 6 Korean endemic species including Coreoleuciscus splendidus, Squalidus gracilis majimae, Microphysogobio yaluensis, Liobagrus mediadiposalis, Coreoperca herzi and Odontobutis platycephala, but no endangered or vulnerable species were found. Length-weight relation, condition factor (K) and relative condition factor (Kn) of Zacco temminckii were compared by the study sites and stream. The equations based on length-weight relation in Buhang and Gam Streams were TW\;=\;0.000004TL^{3.2357}$ and TW\;=\;0.000002TL^{3.3566}$, respectively indicating the fish in Gam Stream became more rotund as length increases. The condition factor (K) and relative condition factor (Kn) against total length of Zacco temminckii at two streams indicated that the fish (>70 mm) in Cam Stream (mean K and Kn= 1.116, 1.21 respectively) had better nutritional condition than those in Buhang Stream (mean K and Ln = 1.046, 1.14 respectively). The results were corresponded with natural disturbances such as drought and intensive rainfall from 2001 to 2003 followed by human activities such as stream repair works. Therefore, it is considered to perform environmental impact assessment with not only confirmation of fish composition but also examination of ecological characteristics in population- level.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.319-337
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• 2010

Major objective of this study was to determine interannual and seasonal water quality along with characteristics of longitudinal gradients along the reservoir axis of the riverine zone (Rz)-to-lacustrine zone (Lz). Water quality dataset of five years during 2003~2007 used here were obtained from Ministry of Environment, Korea and ten physical, chemical and biological parameters were analyzed in the study. Similarity analysis, based on moropho-hydrological variables of reservoir surface area, watershed area, total inflow, and outflow, showed that the reservoirs were categorized as three groups of large-dam reservoirs (Chungju Reservoir, Daecheong Reservoir and Soyang Reservoir), mid-size reservoirs (Andong Reservoir, Yongdam Reservoir, Juam Reservoir and Hapcheon Reservoir), and small-size reservoirs (Hoengseong Reservoir and Buan Reservoir). According to the data comparison of high-flow year (2003) vs. lowflow year (2005), dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, biological oxygen demand (BOD), suspended solids (SS), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), chlorophyll-a (CHL) and electrical conductivity (EC) declined along the longitudinal axis of Rz to Lz and water transparency, based on Secchi depth (SD), increased along the axis. These results indicate that transparency was a function of Values of pH, DO, SS, SD, and EC at each site were greater in the low-flow year (2005) than the high-flow year (2003), whereas values of BOD, COD, TN, TP and CHL were greater in the high-flow year (2003). When values of TN, TP, CHL and SD in nine reservoirs were compared in the three zones of Rz, Tz, and Lz, values of TN, TP and CHL declined along longitudinal gradients and SD showed the opposite due to the sedimentation processes from the water column. Values of TN were not statistically correlated with TP values. The empirical linear models of TP-CHL and CHL-SD showed significant (p<0.05, $R^2$>0.04). In the mid-size reservoirs, the variation of CHL was explained ($R^2$=0.2401, p<0.0001, n=239) by the variation of TP. The affinities in the correlation analysis of mid-size reservoirs were greater in the CHL-SD model than any other empirical models, and the CHL-SD model had an inverse relations. In the meantime, water quality variations was evidently greater in Daecheong Reservoir than two reservoirs of Andong Reservoir and Hoengseong Reservoir as a result of large differences of water quality by long distance among Rz, Tz and Lz.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.657-679
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• 2010

Mushroom fruiting was investigated in pine and oak dominated forest stands in Songni National Park located in central Korea for six years from 2003 to 2008, in order to understand the relationship between mushroom diversity and the environmental factors, precipitation, temperature, soil moisture and vegetation. The most frequent fruiting families were those of ectomycorrhizal mushrooms, Tricholomataceae, Amanitaceae, Russulaceae, Cortinariaceae, and Boletaceae. The frequency of mushroom fruiting varied from 94 to 167 species per year, with July and August having the highest(13~90 species). Mushroom fruiting was positively correlated to precipitation(r=0.897), using Palmer Drought Severity Index for the long term period and Standard Precipitation Index for short term period. Soil moisture content also affected mushroom fruiting, with Lactarius chrysorrheus and Russula virescens fruiting only at soil moisture content higher than 20%. Positive correlation between mushroom fruiting and temperature was also noted(r=0.77), with optimum rates at $21{\sim}25^{\circ}C$. Tricholoma flayayirens, Amanita gymnopus, Lactarius piperatus, Inocybe asteropora and Xerocomus chrysenteron were able to fruit at temperatures higher than $25^{\circ}C$. However, Laccaria amethystea, Amanita virosa and Russula mariae fruited at relatively wide temperature range. The influence of vegetation on mushroom fruiting was likewise noted, with 38 species, including Suillus bovinus and Boletopsis leucomelas being specific to pine dominated stands, while 42 species, including Polyporus arcularius and Hericium erinaceum were specific to oak dominated stands. On the other hand, around 50 species, including Laccaria laccata and Lycoperdon parlatum, were able to fruit in both types of vegetation. In conclusion, mushroom fruiting greatly varies with changes in precipitation, soil moisture, temperature and vegetation.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.223-233
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• 2007

For this study, we analyzed spatial and temporal patterns of trophic state and water quality over the period of $2002{\sim}2005$, using the water chemistry dataset obtained from the Korea Rural community & Agriculture corporation. Most reservoirs, based on TN, showed eutrophic (about 88% of the total). About 20% of agricultural reservoirs, based on TP, showed eutrophic after the criteria of OECD (1982), while 71% and 3% were Hesotrophic and oligotrophic, respectively. Seasonal variations were evident due to the intense monsoon rain during July${\sim}$August; conductivity, COD, SS, nutrients, and chlorophyll-${\alpha}$ (CBL) increased in the postmonsoon compared to the premonsoon. TP values had positive functional relations with conductivity, COD, and CHL values. COD and SS peaked during the intense monsoon. Mean values of TP and CHL values were two times greater in the intense monsoon than the weak monsoon. The increased TP was probably due to inorganic suspended solids from point and non-point sources during the monsoon. Ratios of TN : TP had strong in- verse relations ($R^2$=0.843, p<0.001, n=34) with TP, but not with TN (p>0.05, n=34). Log10-transformed CHL increased with TP in most P-limited reservoirs $(Log_{10}TP=0.5{\times}Log_{10}CHL+0.086)$. Similarity analysis, based TN, TP, and CHL showed that three groups were separated at 90% similarity level; One group was reservoirs with high salinity nearby the seawater, and the other two groups were reservoirs with a low salinity of the inland, and intermediate salinity, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.329-339
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• 2012

In the spring (March to June) in 2010, one diatom Skeletonema costatum occurred outbreaks in Lake Hwajinpo, one of the typical lagoons on the east coast of South Korea. We compared the characteristics of the phytoplankton community during the bloom and extinction period of S. costatum, and evaluated the water quality based on nutritional indices. Results indicate that 1) this bloom showed the highest cell density ($>10^5$ cells $mL^{-1}$) among outbreaks of S. costatum occurred Korea, 2) occurred in below or over $20^{\circ}C$ water temperature, and 3) was destroyed in the early summer with higher temperature than the bloom period. Water quality or trophic status of the lake was eutrophic to hypertrophic with high salinity, BOD, COD and phosphate, and low N/P ratios and transparency. Phytoplankton community in the spring bloom had a high dominance and low diversity, but rightly recovered to low dominance and high diversity in the summer season. Therefore, we temporarily conclude that the bloom of S. costatum in Hwajinpo was triggered by the extended spring drought and the reduced influx of river water, and appeal that the bloom can happen repeatedly every year.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.349-355
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• 2010

This study aims at the augmentation of reliability of the long-term rainfall runoff model. To do so agricultural water uses are evaluated by analyzing the effects of small scale irrigational hydraulic structures on long term runoff processes and thereby rainfall-runoff model is modified considering them. As a result the simulation results of the sub-basins having more agricultural reservoirs than the others are disagreed with the observations. The 2nd quarter simulation results show similar trend to it. Especially the farming seasonal results of the drought year as the year of 2008 have many negative discharge values due to the lack of agricultural water uses. This result come from the water uses input data corresponding to not real water uses but water demands. In this study the formulas are derived to estimate the discharges and return ratios and the long term rainfall-runoff model is reformulated based on these. It is confirmed that the errors of the simulation results could be reduced by considering the effects of small scale irrigational hydraulic structures and the reliability of the simulation results improved greatly.