• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.289-309
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• 2023

While South Korea's universal healthcare system has garnered attention in public health, the issue of inequality in healthcare service provision among different age groups has incessantly become a significant concern. The focus of this concern is primarily on essential healthcare services, encompassing fundamental aspects of healthcare such as internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatric and adolescent care. This inequality is not limited to differences among age groups (both junior and senior demographics) but also extends to potential disparities in healthcare services based on geographic location, particularly in urban and rural contexts. This paper aims to investigate disparities in primary healthcare service resources in South Korea's evolving economic landscape between 1995 and 2021. We utilize a set of inequality indices with a spatial perspective through geographic cluster analysis. The findings reveal that concerns about inequality have been amplified during various economic events, including the IMF crisis in 1999, the global financial crisis in 2008, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. These years are identified as significant phases that have contributed to manifesting spatial disparities in primary healthcare provisions, with a particular emphasis on the senior-aged population rather than junior or all population groups. Our findings underscore the pressing need to address the unequal distribution of essential healthcare resources as part of preparedness for potential economic impacts, requiring a comprehensive consideration of the interconnected nature of demographic and spatial dimensions in healthcare services.

• The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.41-51
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• 2024

The Sincheon wetland shows a remarkable diversity of fluvial landforms, such as river islands, anastomosing channels, braided channels, and sand-gravel bars, which contribute to its rich ecological habitat. The wetland area is characterized by a ecological diversity of herbaceous and woody plants. Significant changes in land cover within the wetlands were observed from 2008 to 2020. Notably, there was a rapid decrease in agricultural area from 18% to 0.04%, while the vegetation area expanded from 45% to 54%. Concurrently, the water area also experienced a notable increase from 34% to 41%. The surface sediment composition in the studied area displays sandy loam characteristics and exhibits acidic soil properties. Sediment acidity tends to increase downstream and in the central part of channels. Variations in acidity are also observed at nearby collection sites due to the tributaries and local discharge. The presence of dense vegetation in river islands and bars has led to a significant transformation of sediments into soil, with this change being more pronounced downstream, particularly near the weirs. The installation of a weir in Sincheon wetland is believed to have a significant impact on altering flow velocities between upstream and downstream sections, as well as influencing erosion and sediment deposition patterns. However, given the formation of landforms in response to weirs, effective administration and management are essential to address potential risks of catastrophic environmental disruptions, such as the removal of weirs and/or the maintenance of river channels.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.87-102
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• 2015

This study attempts to introduce the methodology for accounting real-time population distribution in the urban areas. For the purpose, we utilize the media user's time-space information from the media users' media diaries in the media panel survey databases. We analyze the space-time population rate for each activity space related with everyday urban lifes. Seoul has been selected as a case study area, since space-time information are relatively rich there, and thus the comparisons are available. The space-time population rates have been verified by the comparative analysis with the T-card results. We propose a real time population measurement method by combination of the space-time population rate with geographical data. The real time population of each activity space at each dong in Seoul has been calculated by multiplying the space-time population rates to the numbers of employer of three categories of activity spaces(residential, working, and commercial). By utilizing GIS, we visualize the results of two time points (3AM and 3PM) and then analyze the spacio-temporal characteristics of real time population distribution in Seoul. The Day time population distribution pattern shows strong relationships with the distribution of business and commercial activities, while the night time population distribution pattern can be explained by resident population distribution almost perfectly.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.101-115
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• 2000

This study aims to make a research on the secondary school education of geography and the system of teacher training in Belgium, focused on the case of Francophone Community. What has been made clear by this research can be summed up as follows. The first two years of the secondary school offer two hours of 'environment education', per week, which can be categorized into the learning of living geography, in that at this stage students learn how to observe the geographic phenomena in their daily life and pigeonhole them. The two years of the second stage of the secondary school offer one hour of 'world geography' which actually is focused on the district of Europe and Russia. The two years of the third stage of the secondary school offer an advanced course of geography which aims to teach systematically the physical geography and the human geography. A remarkable change in geographic education in Belgium is that in the wake of the Revision Act of the secondary school education, textbooks were replaced by other teaching manuals adapted to the regional condition by the teachers. This may result in a wide gap of achievements in geography according to the conditions of educational establishments. Another notable change is that the stress of geographic education tends to be placed on the ability of acquiring practical geographic knowledge rather than the geographic information itself. And it is also another marked tendency that most learning activities in geography class are conducted on the basis of student-centered and the method of investigation. Teachers of the lower secondary schools in Belgium are trained in the School of Education as multi-major teachers, such as a teacher for biology-chemistry-geography or a teacher for history-sociology-geography. Teachers of the higher secondary school education are trained in the Department of Teacher Education in universities as solo-major teachers in that they are required to know more deeply to teach an advanced course of geography in the higher secondary schools. To improve the teacher education many folds of policies are adopted. One is that many in-service teachers are officially put into services of guiding and teaching teacher training. Another is that faculty members in charge of teacher training course are trying to level up the qualifications of teachers by rigorous disciplining.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.49-73
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• 1996

This study produces quantitatively weather entropy and information ratio using information theory about frequency in the appearance of precipitation phenomenon and monthly change, and then applies them to observation of the change of their space scale by time. As a result of these, this study defines Pusan, Chongju and Kwangju's weather representativeness and then establishes the range of weather representativeness. Based on weather entropy (statistical parameter)-the amount of average weather information-and information ratio, we can define each area's weather representativeness, which can show us more constant form included topographical, geographical factors and season change. The data used for this study are the daily precipitotion and cloudiness during the recent five years($1990{\sim}1994$) at the 69 stations in Korea. It is divided into class of no precipitation, that of precipitation. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) The four season's mean value of information ratio is the highest value. as 0.641, on the basis of Chongju. It is the lowest as 0.572, on the basis of Pusan. On a seasonal basis, the highest mean value of information rate is April's (spring) in Chongju, and the lowest is October's(fall) in Pusan. Accordingly weather representativeness has the highest in Chongju and the lowest in Pusan. (2) To synthesize information ratio of decaying tendancy and half-decay distance, Chonju's weather representativeness has the highest in April, July and October. And kwangju has the highest value in January and the lowest in April and July. Pusan's weather representativeness is not high, that of Pusan's October is the lowest in the year. (3) If we establish the weather representative character on the basis of Chongju-Pusan, the domain of Chongju area is larger than that of Pusan area in October, July and April in order. But Pusan's is larger than Chongju's in January. In the case of Chongju and Kwangju, the domain of Chongju area is larger than that of Kwangju in October, July and April in order, but it is less than that of Kwangju area in January. In the case of Kwangju-Pusan, the domain of Kwangju is larger than that of Pusan in October, July in order. But in April it is less than Pusan's.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.648-665
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• 2007

The present curricula of department of common social studies education and department of geography education have the problem including only the basic completion subjects, and not including their principal themes. This unestablished state of principal themes in the basic completion subjects has given rise to the absent state of standard curriculum in department of common social studies education and department of geography education, and that finally has aroused many obstacles in the problem-setting and the examination-applying of middle and high school teacher appointment examination. Accordingly, this study established the principal themes of 21 basic completion subjects in common social studies and geography. The principal themes of 21 basic completion subjects in common social studies and geography will be form the base of establishing the content element of standard curriculum in department of common social studies education and department of geography education and the assessment element of middle and high school teacher appointment examination in common social studies and geography as an indication subject for examination of the teacher's qualification. Especially, considering the curriculum modification of college of education and the system change of middle and high school teacher appointment examination due to be propulsed simultaneously by Ministry of Education to the year of 2009, the establishment of principal themes in the basic completion subjects and the making of standard curriculum are very pertinent to the occasion. Because the principal themes of 21 basic completion subjects established in this study are made for some 50 days driven by the stress of circumstances, those have to be studied again. Also, because the construction of basic completion subjects includes many problems, that has to be revised.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.488-505
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• 2007

The purposes of this research are twofold; 1) to verify spatial differences of tectonic movement using the spatial distribution of earthquakes, and 2) to infer mechanisms that generate spatial accumulation patterns of earthquakes in the Korean Peninsula. The first part of this sequential paper (Park, 2007) argues that the Korean Peninsula consists of four geostructural regions in which tectonic deformation and consequent geomorphological development patterns are different from each other Since this conclusion has been made by terrain analyses alone, it is necessary to verify this suggestion using other independent geophysical data. Because earthquakes are results of movement and deformation of land masses moving in different directions, the distribution of earthquake epicenters may be used to identify the direction and rates of land mass movement. This paper first analysed the spatial distribution of earthquakes using spatial statistics, and then results were compared with the spatial arrangement of geostructural regions. The spatial distribution of earthquakes in the Korean Peninsula can be summarized as the followings; firstly, the intensity of earthquakes shows only weak spatial dependency, and shows large difference even at adjacent regions. Secondly, the epicenter distribution has a clear spatial accumulation pattern, even though the intensity of earthquake shows a random pattern. Thirdly, the high density area of earthquakes shows a clear 'L' shape, passing through Pyeongannam-do, centered at Pyeongyang, and Hwanghae-do, Seosan and Pohang. The correlation coefficient between the density of earthquakes and distance from geostructral region boundaries is much higher than those between the density of fault lines and distance from tectonic division boundaries. Since fault lines and tectonic divisions in the Korean Peninsula are the results of long-term geological development, there is an apparent scale discrepancy to find significant correlations with earthquakes. This result verifies the research hypothesis that the Korean Peninsula is divided into four geostructral regions in which each has its own moving direction and spatial deformation characteristics. The existence of geostructural regions is also supported by the movement parrerns of land masses estimated from the GPS measurements. This conclusion is expected to provide a new perspective to understand the geomorphological developments and the earthquake occurrences in the Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.469-488
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• 1996

The defining of weather forecasting regions is possible. since the representativeness of regional weather can by reasonably clarified in terms of weather entropy and the use of information ratio. In this paper, the weather entropy and information ratio were derived numerially from using the information theory. The typical weather characteristics were clarified and defined in the homogeneous weather forecasting regions of the southern parts of Korea. The data used for this study are the daily precipitation and cloudiness during the recent five years (1990-1994) at 42 stations in southern parts of Korea. It is divided into four classes of fine, clear, cloudy and rainy. The results are summarized as follows: 1. The maximum value of weather entropy in study area is 2.009 vits in Yosu in July, and the minimum one is 1.624 bits in Kohung in October. The mean value of weather entropy is maximal in July, on the other hand, minimal in October during four season. The less the value of entropy is, the stabler the weather is. While the bigger the value of entropy is, the more changeable the weather is. 2. The deviation from mean value of weather entropy in southern parts of Korea, with the positive and the negative parts, shows remarkably the distributional tendency of the east (positive) and the west (negative) in January but of the south (positive) and the north (negative) in July. It also clearly shows the distributional tendency of the east (postive) and the west(negative) in the coastal region in April, and of X-type (southern west and northern east: negative) in Chiri Mt. in October. 3. In southern parts, the average information ratio maximaly appear 0.618 in Taegu area in July, whereas minimally 0.550 in Kwangju in October. Particularly the average information ratio of Pusan area is the greatest in April, but the smallest in October. And in Taegu, Kwangju, and Kunsan, it is the greatest in April, January, and July, but the smallest in Jyly, July, and pril. 4.The narrowest appreance of weather representativeness is in July when the Kwangju is the center of the weather forecasting. But the broadest one is in April when Taegu is the center of weather forecasting. 5. The defining of weather forecasting regions in terms of the difference of information ratio most broadly shows up in July in Pusan including the whole Honam area and the southern parts of Youngnam when the Pusan-Taegu is the basis of the application of information ratio. Meanwhile, it appears most broadly in January in Taegu including the whole southern parts except southern coastal area.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.266-280
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• 1994

Upper-air synoptic data and surface weather elements such as temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, cloud and precipitation were analyzed in some detail to determine the characteristics of Nopsae, a foehn-like surface wind over the Youngsuh region of Central Korea. NOAA AVHRR and GMS images are also referenced to identify the distribution of clouds and precipitation to classify the tpyes of foehn over the study area. The data period examined is from 1982 until 1993 of spring and summer months from March through August. Results of the anaylsis are as follows. Warm and dry air penetration over the Younesuh region has experienced on foehn days occured between March 21 and August 10 during study perion. The mean annual number of foehn the days were 28. Foehn phenomena were prominent during March 21-25, April 5-15, May 25-June 10, and June 26-30 pentads. The intensity of the phenomena can be evaluated as the difference of daily maximum temperature and relative humidity between windward sites and leeward sites. The intensity of daily maximum temperature reached 14.5$^{\circ}C$, but most values were in the range of 5.0-7.5$^{\circ}C$ (61%). Although strong intensity of foehns usually develop in June, it is common that farmers in the region experince more aridity during the foehnday of April and May due to the transplantation of rice seedlings. Long-run foehn are not common phenomena and 55% of foehn terminate in one day, but there is a record that Nopsae persisted up to 9 days continuously. The author identified using the cloud and precipitation data out of NOAA-11, AVHRR and GMS images is that one of them has no precipitation over windward side. The available data and the results of the analysis are somewhat inadequate. Since the results imply that wave phenomenon is potentially important in terms of local surface weather and vertical momentum transport, more detailed theoretical and observational studies are necessary to clarify the mechanism and the impacts of Nopsae.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.51-67
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• 1996

There are three main rice-growing regions in the United States: the prairie region along the Mississippi River Valley in eastern Arkansas; the Gulf Coast prairie region in southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas; and the Central Valley of California. The Central Valley of California is producing about 23% of the US rice(Fig. 1). In California. most of the crop has been produced in the Colusa, Sutter, Butte, Glenn Counties of the Sacramento Valley since 1912, when rice was commercially grown for the first time in the state(Fig. 2). Roughly speaking, the average annual area sown to rice in California is about 300,000 acres to 400,000 acres during the last forty years(Fig. 3). California rice is grown under a Mediterranean climate characterized by warm, dry, clear days, and a long growing season favorable to high photosynthetic rates and high rice yields. The average rice yield per acre is probably higher in California than in any other rice-growing regions of the world(Fig. 4). A dependable supply of irrigation water must be available for a successful rice culture. Most of the irrigation water for California rice comes from the winter rain and snow-fed reservoir of the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. Less than 10 percent of rice irrigation water is pumped from wells in areas where surface water is not sufficient. It is also essential to have good surface drainage if maximum yields are to be produced. Rice production in California is highly mechanized, requiring only about four hours of labor per acre. Mechanization of rice culture in California includes laser-leveler technology, large tractors, self-propelled combines for harvesting, and aircraft for seeding, pest control, and some fertilization. The principal varieties grown in California are medium-grain japonica types with origins from the cooler rice climates of the northern latitudes (Table 1). Long-grain varieties grown in the American South are not well adapted to California's cooler environment. Nearly all the rice grown recently in California are improved into semidwarf varieties. Choice of variety depends on environment, planting date, quality desired, marketing, and harvesting scheduling. The Rice Experiment Station at Biggs is owned, financed, and administered by the rice industry. The station was established in 1912, as a direct result of the foresight and effort of Charles Edward Chambliss of the United States Department of Agriculture. Now, The station's major effort is the development of improved rice varieties for California.