• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.405-421
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• 2019

International aid to North Korea remains far below the humanitarian needs of vulnerable people. This paper examines the trajectory of international humanitarian assistance to North Korea over the last two decades with the focus on its decline in the context of the country's nuclear standoff and corresponding stringent sanctions. In so doing, the paper addresses major problems associated with North Korea's reception of foreign aid and operational constraints placed on humanitarian activities in the country. It shows that humanitarian assistance to North Korea has been largely shaped by geopolitical dynamics. A survey of UN reports and statistics also suggests a shifting trend in recent international aid to North Korea. The decline of aid and multiple operational obstacles faced by humanitarian organizations, for instance, have led to a fall in agricultural support and a proportional rise in health and related services. While UN Security Council resolutions include an exemption provision, humanitarian assistance to North Korea has been constrained by stringent sanctions, which have led to adverse consequences for the civilian population. In this regard, the paper suggests some policy directions for international aid to North Korea amidst negotiations over denuclearization, while stressing an urgent need to address the negative impact of sanctions on vulnerable groups in the country.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.40 no.4 s.109
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• pp.416-427
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• 2005

This paper aims to investigate morphological changes of deltaic barrier islands in the Nakdong Estuary and especially their spatial variations after barrage construction. We analyzed shorelines, geometrical centroids, and areas to reveal the changes of barrier islands. Here, we suggest three interesting points from this study. First, each individual barrier island in the Nakdong estuary goes through a different stage of the geomorphic cycle. The frontal barrier islands such as Sinja-do and Doyo-deung grow because they are located in front of the gates of the barrage. Sediments in water out of the gates are moved to offshore and then reworked by coastal processes such as waves and tides. Second, on the contrary, Baekhap-deung located behind Doyo-deung now diminishes indicating that sediments mainly move to the frontal growing island. Third, there is no morphological change in several barrier islands far away from the main flow of the Nakdong river such as Jinwoo-do, Daema-deung, and Jangja-do. In conclusion, barrier islands in the Nakdong estuary show distinct spatial variations. As a barrier island is closer to the main channel or is in the frontal location, there happens a very dynamic change in the morphology of the island.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.743-760
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• 2008

This paper attempts to examine how Maryland's Priority Funding Area (PFA) designation and incentive program has influenced the location of infrastructure investment. Is Maryland's PFA program reducing sprawl? In order to answer this question, data on the water and sewer infrastructure investments between 1997 and 2003 are collected from each county in the state. Empirical works are composed of two parts. The first part of the empirical analysis examines the pattern of water and sewer investment that has gone in and outside the PFAs between 1997 and 2003 at the county level. The second part of the empirical study shows at a county level the conditions that influence decisions to go in and outside the PFA. Regression models with various specifications are used for the analysis. The findings reveal that state fund has worked as designed. The coefficients of state fund in all estimations are significant and have expected signs implying that a county with more state fund tends to invest more in PFA as less outside.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.1-17
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• 1997

Geographic Information Systems(GIS) are very useful for spatial analysis and policy in local government administration. Recognizing the value of GIS, Chungnam province authorities put a spur on the introduction and development of it. But they have some difficulty in this process because of technical restraint, expertise shortage and budget limit. This study has surveyed current achievement and conditions for GIS development and presented general framework and subordinate tasks to build up GIS. First of all, there are a few prior conditions to guarantee the success of GIS: First, we should set up reasonable long-term plan and follow systematic procedures according to the plan. Second, it is essential to clarify what initiatively manage to whole business and so we should make up GIS-Board as an institutional center for this job. Third, we must research how to take advantage of already existing NGIS(National Geographic Information System), so that we may eliminate redundancy of investment. We can save a lot of finance and human resources through it. Fourth, we must focus on the importance of accurate mapping by utilizing new technology like GPS(Global Positioning System). Fifth, we should arrange efficient training program to constantly produce excellent human resources for GIS.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.295-313
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• 2002

While the growth of Taegu has occurred through the land readjustment project, the public sector development project and the construction of roads, its growth pattern has been shaped by physical constraints such as mountains, streams and rail roads. The processes of urban growth of Taegu are classified into four stages: the stage of urban embryo in the Chosun Era; the formation stage of the basic urban system after the Japanese Colonial Era up to 1960; the stage of urban growth in the industrialization period from 1960s to 1980; and lastly, the stage of urban expansion and maturation, with construction of extensive newly developed districts, after the 1980s. Since its promotion to a metropolitan city with the inclusion of Seongseo, Wolbae, Gosan, Ansim and Chilgok in 1981, those regions have grown into newly developed residential districts, with its accompanying high density and high rise apartments complexes, through the public sector development project. These newly developed districts are located about six to seven kilometers away from CBD of the city along with main radial roads. The sites are also located on the route of the fourth belt way of the city. While the Sangin, Seongseo and Jisan Beommul newly developed districts have developed contiguously with the existing built-up areas, the Siji and Chilgok districts have developed separately by the green belt and the Geumho River, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.290-308
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• 2008

The industrial development of Goryeong County was started by the operation of the Ssangrym Agro￢industrial complex in the 1980s. As of 2m3, there are 6 industrial complexes in Goryeong County which account for 80 percent of total employment and 67 percent of total production outPuts in local manufacturing. The local manufacturing industries grew steadily before the 1997 financial crisis which resulted in industrial decline and have shown again a growing tendency since 2000. In this period of growth, manufacturing outPuts are increased and the industrial structure are improved, while employment and value added are in stagnation. The major industrial agglomerations are based in Gaejin-Myun, Dasan-Myun and Ssangrym-Myun, all of which are those in which the agro-industrial complex is operated. More than half of local manufacturing finns are those which came to move in from other regions, looking for cheap labour forces, agglomeration of the related finns and the easy accessibility to transport and communication. However, such local advantages are increasingly losing due to the shortage of labour forces and the lack of industrial networks. Some policy agendas can be suggested as follows. First of all, industrial policy should attempt links with the building-up of the Daegu Technopolis and the up-grading of the local industrial structure towards the knowledge-based industries. Secondly, the local government should make efforts to establish the innovation supporting system for local firms and the industrial and residential basis.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.651-665
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• 2016

This paper tried to delimitate the location and scope of Nokdundo located in the Dumangang estuary. In 18th century, Nokdundo was an alluvial island formed by several tributaries divided from the mainstream of Dumangang. In the mid-19th century, Nokdundo was connected to the Russian territory because some tributaries were blocked by sediment flows. In many maps published in the Joseon Dynasty, the location and size of Nokdundo had not been depicted consistently with each other nor been described correctly. Because of the recurrent extinction-generating phenomena of waterways of the Dumangang due to sedimentation process, the location and scope of Nokdundo can be delimitated differently according to the era. According to the distance information of the records published in the 19th and 20th century, the scope of Nokdundo can be extended widely to the Maritime Province of Siberia. So, the author have set the Sodumangang(Karasik River) as the northern boundary of Nokdundo. The Karasik River is called Sodumangang by the Koreans living in the Maritime Province. As a tributary of the Dumangang, Sodumangang flows into the Posyet Bay. Nokdundo was an island separated from the Korean peninsula and the Maritime Province by the Dumangang and the Sodumangang respectively. Tributaries of the Dumangang have formed many alluvial islands at the mouth of Dumangang where the Dumangang meets with the East Sea. So, the possibility that Nokdundo was consisted of several islands can not be excluded.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.129-146
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• 2014

This paper investigates how industrial diversity affects unemployment and employment instability from the perspective of the regional economy. Through this analysis, we examine how the industry-specific policy to promote some industry strategically in most of areas affects the stability of the regional economy. We measure Herfindahl indexes using the 1993-2010 data of 16 regions in Korea, and use panel regression model for empirical analysis. The main results from this empirical analysis are summarized as follows. First, we confirm that the industrial structure of most regions has been changed to the direction of specialization in 1990s and to the direction of diversification in 2000s through analyzing the changes in the values of Herfindahl indexes during the given period. Second, we find from the estimation results of panel regression model that the higher industrial diversity in most of regions is, the lower the unemployment rate is. However, a statistically significant relationship between industrial diversity and employment instability only partially confirmed. Third, there exist high unemployment rate and employment instability in most metropolitan areas, but it is hard to say that this relationship is highly statistically significant. From the results of the empirical analysis, it is likely that the industry-specific policies such as the regional strategic industry development policies unlike policy goals make the unemployment rate to rise and economic instability to increase. From the viewpoint of employment aspects, the strategies to increase industrial diversity would be desirable rather than those to specialize in the industrial structure.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.211-222
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• 2007

This paper aims to evaluate the new regional development policy which is entirely focused on the lagging rural regions in Korea. The new regional development, called the shin-hwal-ryuk policy is to reflect the radical change in the idea and philosophy of rural development. Although traditional rural development policies were top-down-based and physical infrastructure-centered, the new rural development policy idea is based on bottom-up and soft infrastructure which is related to the promotion of regional innovation capacities. However, it is revealed that the new rural policy involves a variety of problems in the process of establishing and making progress the policy plan in a local level. In the operating process of the policy plan, the central government has shown too quick-tempered for achieving visible outcomes, while many of local government suffer from the lacks of professional capabilities to carry out the plan. I see that as a result of the mixture of these problems the new policy is regarded as 'passively localized process' by the central government rather than 'actively localizing process' by the region for building regional innovation capacity.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.192-205
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• 2015

This study proposes a device for the organizational frameworks and essential (content) elements of world realms in world regional geography subject. Here, the term 'organizational framework' means the method of realms division, reasonable number and naming of realms, and approaches to reams inclusively. And the term 'essential elements' designate the core elements as big ideas that every student must study through world reams. To approach these thesis, the author suggests that there is a growing trend of a combined regional concept to apply for reams division, that it is necessary to rationalize the number of realms and to prepare rather a synthetic approach to realms than a single one. And then, the author presents five essential elements as big ideas of world reams that composed of four by thematic approach and one by global-issue approach. But, this study emphasizes that in organizing the essential elements for a realm it is a better strategy to bring elements selectively with a realm because certain element fulfils function specially to certain realm.