• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.233-260
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• 2018

The West Coast is known as one of the world's three largest intertidal mudflats but the mudflat ecosystems have been constantly destroyed by various reclamation projects and industrial complexes. This study intends to estimate the economic values of major ecosystem services provided by the Seocheon intertidal flats using a choice modeling method. The benefits of the intertidal flats are categorized as four different attributes: number of migratory birds (related to biodiversity and cultural services), production of fish and shellfish (regulating services and habitats), tourism activities (cultural services), and number of fishing households in local communities (cultural services). Study results show that the general public enjoys the economic benefits of 1.777 trillion won (900 million won/hectare) as of 2015 in order to preserve 1,200ha of Seocheon mudflat. Assuming that future generations continue to enjoy these economic benefits of mudflat conservation, the annual value converted is about 64.7 billion won/year, corresponding to 53.9 million won/hectare per year. Individuals are willing to pay are expected to maintain their entire life in the 1,000 households living in the Seocheon tidal-flat fishing village, with an average of 11,000 won per person and an additional 50,000 tourist activities per year. It was estimated to have the amount of payment of 9,000 won. An individual's marginal willingness to pay was estimated to be about 11,000 won per year for supporting a total of 1,000 fishing households, 6,000 won to provide tourism activities of 50,000 visitors, and 9,000 won to provide the habitats of 90,000 migratory birds. For segmentation analysis, residents of Seocheon did not place significant values for the attributes besides migratory bird conservation. However, those of Gunsan showed relatively low margtinal willingness to pay for conservation of migratory birds and fishing villages but showed similar preferences for the maintenance of tourism activities compared to the general public. The results imply that the introduction of economic incentive system is needed to effectively manage and conserve ecosystem services of specific intertidal flats.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.84-94
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• 2019

The Seocheon and Yubu Island mudflats in Geum Estuary are important stopover sites for migratory birds as energy supplementation area in the East Asia-Australasian Flyway. Benthic invertebrates in the tidal flats are important food resources for the migratory birds. In other words, benthic invertebrates in the tidal flats play an important ecological role in energy flow. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between benthic invertebrate assemblages and environmental factors in Seocheon and Yubudo tidal flats in the Geum Estuary. As a result of the benthic invertebrate assemblage during the fall migration season, the total species number was 147, density and biomass were $1,772{\pm}1,342individuals/m^2$ and $445.1{\pm}807.6g/m^2$, respectively. Based on the appearance species and the density data, the result of analysis of mutual similarity among sampling sites was divided into two groups. Group A was the Macrophthalmus-Heteromastus community and Group B was the Spio-Urothoe-Mandibulophoxus community. Group B showed higher mean species number, density and biomass than Group A. The BIO-ENV analysis showed that the benthic invertebrate assemblages were most affected by the combination of sand content % and sediment sorting (${\rho}=0.500$). The variables of significant relationship with species number and biomass were sediment sorting (p=0.015) and the pore water DO(Dissolved Oxygen, p=0.003) in sediment, respectively.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.266-274
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• 2017

We surveyed the habitat use and food materials of the endangered Swan Goose (Anser cygnoides) during the wintering period at the Seocheon tidal flat. The bird wintered about six months from October 2014 to early April 2015 at the flat. They showed a remarkable change in choosing their feeding habitat and prey. They stayed entirely at sedge grass patches on Songrim tidal flat during the early wintering period (October), while after November they gradually moved to Janggu bay and used rice paddy fields as well as sedge patches on the tidal flats as their feeding site. The dietary analysis showed the sedge grass (Bolboschoenus sp., Cyperaceae) was the main dietary source during the entire wintering period. Interestingly, the proportion of Cyperaceae on feces decreased slightly over wintering time, while the proportion of Fabaceae increased relatively since November. These results suggest that the Swan Geese switched their habitat and food sources in response to the change of food availability. The Seocheon tidal flat area is the important wintering site for Swan Geese and sedge grass patches in the area need to be managed as the main feeding area for the wintering Swan Geese.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.160-169
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• 2019

The migration status of waterbirds inhabiting the 10 coastal wetlands in the south and west coasts (Jangbongdo, Muuido, Daecheoncheon estuary, Seocheon tidal flat, Yubudo, Gomso bay, Hauido, Jeungdo, Doam bay, Gangjin bay) was examined from May 2008 to March 2013. For the most dominant taxonomical group, shorebirds accounted for 37.5% of the number of species and 67.1% of the total population, followed in the order of dabbling ducks, herons, and seagulls. The dominate species were Calidris alpina, Larus crassirostris, Limosa lapponica, Charadrius alexandrinus, and Calidris tenuirostris. Shorebirds were observed most at Seocheon Tidal Flats and Yubudo Island, and dabbling ducks were found most in Doam Bay. Diving ducks were observed most at Gangjin Bay and seagulls were seen most frequently at Seocheon Tidal Flats. The ten coastal wetlands of the western and southern coasts were divided into three groups according to the similarity index of waterbirds (Ro). Group 1 was the area where dabbling ducks and diving ducks were dominant, group 2 was the area where shorebirds were dominant, and group 3 was the area where seagulls were dominant. It was evident that there were differences in species composition depending on the regional environments.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.409-415
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• 1999

To evaluate the purification capacity of pollutants (COD, $PO_4^{3-}-p$, $NO_3^{-}-N$, Cu, Cd, Pb) in the three tidal flats, Eueunri, Gyewhado, Chunjangdae, the experiments were carried out with the batch reactor equipped with artifical tidal flats. Eueunri tidal flat was $98.8\%$ content of silt and clay and Chungjangdae was $97.84\%$ content of sand. The organic matters (I.L., $COD_{sed}$, POC) in Eueunri tidal flat were 2$\~$8 times higher than other tidal flats. The purification capacity of COD was 0.75 kg/ha/12 hr in Eueunri, 0.60 kg/ha/12 hr in Gyewhado and 0.55 kg/ha/12 hr in Chunjangdae. The mean purification capacity of COD in three tidal flats was 1.27 kg/ha/day. The calculated purification capacity of COD was 25.4 ton/day in the disappeared tidal flat areas (20,000 ha) of the Saemangeum reclamation. The purification capacity of phosphorus was 0.21 kg/ha/12 hr in Gyewhado, 0.39 kg/ha/12 hr in Eueunri and 0.22 kg/ha/12hr in Chunjangdae. The nitrate was 0.53, 0.74 and 0.43kg/ha/12hr, respectively. The purification capacity of heavy metals (Cu, Cd, Pb) were 88.9g/ha/12hr, 11.0g/ha/12hr, 1.7g/ha/12hr in Gyewhado, 89.1g/ha/12hr, 18.0g/ha/12hr, 2.6g/ha/12hr in Eueunri and 55.3g/ha/12hr, 18.0g/ha/12hr, 2.1g/ha/12hr in Chunjangdae, respectively. Accordingly, the purification capacity of pollutants in Eueunri tidal flat with high contents of organic matter were higher than other tidal flats. So, the purification capacity of pollutants were affected by physical and/or chemical characteristics of tidal flats.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.189-205
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• 2014

Most local governments make an attempt to attract tourists through the large-scale development projects or regional festival events. But, its possibility of success is actually low, so they must take care of ecotourism industry which has higher efficiency in comparison with investing expense. Seocheon area couldn't be focused greatly in spite of the excellent ecological and cultural resources. However, there are lots of possibilities to be a new center of ecotourism because of newly opened National Institute of Ecology and National Marine Biology Resource Institute. Therefore, the purposes of this thesis are to analyze several eco-cultural property all over Seocheon, introduce ecotourism, a main function of ecosystem services, and develop the program satisfying 3 elements of ecotourism; natural environment, visitors and residents. In Seocheon located in where the sea meets the river, ecological property could be reorganized into 4 areas in relation to existing famous tourist attractions. As a measure to let visitors stay, we induced them to lodge in the region through the field work. To realize slow life, we designed it so that they can enjoy each landscape slowly. we also suggested the program which can guide visitors onto the vicinity of habitat for migratory birds at the mouth of Geumgang River and Seocheon foreshore nominated as Ramsar wetlands by focusing on National Institute of Ecology and National Marine Biology Resource Institute which will be the Mecca of ecology research. Through this research, there will be an opportunity to satisfy visitors of Seocheon and enrich local residents' lives.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.409-426
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to present the raw data for management and conservation of tidal flat by objective surveying and analysing the halophytes and vegetation distributed in Seocheon tidal flat wetland conservation area, Korea. The results are as follows. The numbers of halophytes in this site were summarized as 27 taxa including 13 families, 21 genera, 26 species and 1 variety. In the results of ecologically important species, rare plant was 1 taxa, 10 taxa of the specific plants by floristic region, 1 taxa of naturalized plant and 1 taxa of the plant with approval for delivering oversea. The life form spectrum consisted of therophytes(44.4%), hemicryptophytes(25.9%), geophytes(14.8%), nanophanerophytes(7.5%), chamaephytes and hydatophytes(each 3.7%). The types of vegetation of Seocheon tidal flat wetland conservation area were classified with 17 communities including Vitex rotundifolia community, Suaeda maritima community, Calystegia soldanella community and so forth. In the halophytes composition, section C and E-1 had the largest character species and companion species. In the results of vegetation amount, section C, D, E-1 and E-2 were the highest score, on the other hand, section A and B were the lowest. The final rating was calculated by adding up values of two factors, and section C and E-1 had the highest rating of II. In future, we will survey the whole flora in Seocheon tidal flat, we will offer the help to establishing the conservation plan of coastal plant ecosystem in West Sea.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.223-228
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the purification capacity of pollutants by column test with the tidal flat sediment. Sediment materials were taken from Chunjangdae tidal flat which located in Chungnam Seochungun. The column tests were conducted on four conditions(R1 : raw sewage filtered by G2 filter, R2 : sterilized sewage after filtered by GF/C filter, R3 : R2 /filtered(membrane) seawater (1:1), R4 : R2 /filtered(membrane) seawater(1:2)). The results of this study may be summarized as followed ; The removed COD by column tests were increased according to increasing the quantity of sewage. During the column tests of 580min, the total removed ammonia nitrogen were 90.1mg for R1, 81.0mg for R2, 27.6mg for R3 and 4.1mg for R4. The result was similar to COD experiment. During the 580min, the total removed total-phosphates were 3.4mg for R1, 4.2mg for R2, 5.6mg for R3 and 2.0mg for R4. The removal efficiency of Pb and Cd for R3 and R4 reactor were higher than R1 and R2 reactor. The remove of heavy metal by the column test was high in sample with seawater. But in the initial 20min, the adsorbed Pb and Cd showed about 3% of the total adsorbed Pb and Cd during 580min.