• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.165-183
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• 2015

It is well known that, since the 15th century, the amount of soil loss in our country due to change in land use by human has increased more rapidly than ever before. However we cannot answer the question 'How long can the soil persist under the current rates of soil loss?', because it was difficult to quantify the soil production rate. With the advancement of accelerated mass spectrometry, the attempt to quantify rate of soil production and derive soil production function succeeded, and recently it was also applied into the Daegwanryeong Plateau. Here we introduce the principles for quantifying soil production and deriving soil production function using terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides, and then compare the soil production rates from the plateau with soil loss data after the late 20th century, and finally estimate how long the soil can persist. Averaged soil production rate since the Holocene derived from the plateau is revealed as ${\sim}0.05[mm\;yr^{-1}]$, and, however, the recent soil loss rate of intensively used farmlands at the same region is up to sixty times greater than the soil production rate. Thus, if current land use system is maintained, top soils on the cultivated lands over hillslopes especially in upland areas are expected to disappear within several decades at the earliest.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2011

The physical and chemical characteristics of loess-paleosol sequence in Jeongjang-ri, Geochang basin are examined using the magnetic susceptibility measurement, grain size analysis, OSL age dating, major, rare earth and trace elements analysis. The grain size characteristics of the loess-palesol sequence are obviously different from those of river sediment forming river terrace deposits and the Chinese Loess Plateau. The loess-paleosol sequence consisting of L1, L1LL1, L1S1, L1L2, S1 and L2 from top to bottom is estimated to MIS 2~MIS 6 and the river terrace to MIS 7. The compositions of major, rare earth and trace elements indicate that the sequence show more weathered characteristics than the Chinese Loess Plateau and originated from the Chinese Loess Plateau. These features are in harmony with the previous studies in Korea.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.67-78
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• 2016

Soil carbon(C) is an essential property for characterizing soil quality. Understanding spatial patterns of soil C is particularly limited for mountain areas. This study aims to predict the spatial pattern of soil C using terrain analysis in a steep mountainous area. Specifically, model performances and prediction uncertainties were investigated based on the number of resampling repetitions. Further, important predictors for soil C were also identified. Finally, the spatial distribution of uncertainty was analyzed. A total of 91 soil samples were collected via conditioned latin hypercube sampling and a digital soil C map was developed using support vector regression which is one of the powerful machine learning methods. Results showed that there were no distinct differences of model performances depending on the number of repetitions except for 10-fold cross validation. For soil C, elevation and surface curvature were selected as important predictors by recursive feature elimination. Soil C showed higher values in higher elevation and concave slopes. The spatial pattern of soil C might possibly reflect lateral movement of water and materials along the surface configuration of the study area. The higher values of uncertainty in higher elevation and concave slopes might be related to geomorphological characteristics of the research area and the sampling design. This study is believed to provide a better understanding of the relationship between geomorphology and soil C in the mountainous ecosystem.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.45-57
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• 2023

To assess land subsidence estimation and preparedness in the Geum River basin, this study applied GIS techniques and identified six key areas. The Geum River basin has experienced an increase in heavy rainfall since late 2010, and four study areas have shown an increase in groundwater levels. Land subsidence primarily occurred from June to September, with higher rainfall years in 2020 and 2023. Approximately 83.6% of land subsidence in Chungcheongbuk-do province occurred in Cheongju-si, mainly attributed to aging sewage pipes. The regions experiencing population growth have likely led to the construction of underground infrastructures and sewer pipes. Thus, it is considered that various factors, including sewage pipe leaks, precipitation, slope gradient, low drainage density, and groundwater level fluctuations, have contributed to land subsidence. Improving land subsidence estimation involves incorporating additional natural factors and human activities.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.107-115
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• 2003

This research investigated the 2001 spring drought on croplands in South Korea using satellite imagery. South Korea has suffered from spring droughts almost every year. Meteorological indices have been used for monitoring droughts, however they don't tell the local severity of drought. Therefore, this research aimed at detecting the local, spatial pattern of drought severity at a cropland level. This research analyzed the agricultural drought using the wetness of remotely sensed pixels that affects the growth of early crops significantly in the spring. This research, specifically, analyzed the spatial distribution and severity of drought using the tasseled cap transformation and topographical factors. The wetness index from the tasseled cap transformation of Landsat 7 ETM/sub ＋/ imagery was very useful for detecting the 2001 spring drought susceptibility in agricultural croplands. Especially, the wetness values smaller than -0.2 were identified as the croplands that were suffering from serious water deficit. Using the water deficit pixels, drought severity was modeled finally.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.95-118
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• 2010

This study aims to investigate the spatial distribution of major soil types in Korea, and to assess the ability to predict soil distribution using environmental variables. A classification tree method was used to assess soil predictability. While the great soil groups can give more intuitive understandings on their spatial distributions, its predictability using environmental factors is much lower than that of the great groups. The most important factor to determine the spatial distribution of major soil types is the geomorphological characteristic of Korea that shows distinctive morphological difference between mountains and plains. Spatial distribution of climatic variables and catenary soil sequence along slopes play additional roles in determining the distribution of soil types. The classification tree models resulted in 35-75% of prediction accuracy, depends on the combination of different environmental variables brought in the models. While geomorphological variables are the best predictors for the great groups, climatic variables perform better for the great soil groups.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.59-72
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• 2010

This study is based on the observation on the patterned ground found in the northern part of the Baekdusan during two fieldtrips of 2008 summer. The patterned grounds are found in two areas-Dalmun and Socheonji. The patterned ground found around Dalmun are well-sorted, having fine materials in the center and coarse (boulder size) materials in the rim, and stretching in the form of stairs. Meanwhile, the types of patterned ground found around Socheonji are various, including polygon, stripe, and circular patterns. The particle size analysis and morphological analysis of comprising materials are carried out only for the patterned ground of Socheonji. The mean short and long axis of the patterned grounds are 91cm and 163cm, respectively. The distribution pattern of material size from the most samples increase toward the rim, indicating the patterned grounds are well-sorted. The comprising materials are dominated by silt, which is very susceptible for freeze-thaw cycle. The lower ratio of clay (low less than 10%), suggests that physical weathering is more dominant rather than chemical weathering. The involution structure found in the vertical section of the patterned grounds is likely to have formed by active cryoturbation which is one of the dominant geomorphic processes in the periglacial environments like the study area.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.509-523
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• 2016

The soil prediction can provide quantitative soil information for sustainable mountainous ecosystem management. Visible near infrared spectroscopy, one of soil prediction methods, has been applied to predict several soil properties with effective costs, rapid and nondesctructive analysis, and satisfactory accuracy. Spectral preprocessing is a essential procedure to correct noisy spectra for visible near infrared spectroscopy. However, there are no attempts to evaluate various spectral preprocessing methods. We tested 5 different pretreatments, namely continuum removal, Savitzky-Golay filter, discrete wavelet transform, 1st derivative, and 2nd derivative to predict soil carbon(C) and nitrogen(N). Partial least squares regression was used for the prediction method. The total of 153 soil samples was split into 122 samples for calibration and 31 samples for validation. In the all range, absorption was increased with increasing C contents. Specifically, the visible region (650nm and 700nm) showed high values of the correlation coefficient with soil C and N contents. For spectral preprocessing methods, continuum removal had the highest prediction accuracy(Root Mean Square Error) for C(9.53mg/g) and N(0.79mg/g). Therefore, continuum removal was selected as the best preprocessing method. Additionally, there were no distinct differences between Savitzky-Golay filter and discrete wavelet transform for visual assessment and the methods showed similar validation results. According to the results, we also recommended Savitzky-Golay filter that is a simple pre-treatment with continuum removal.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-16
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• 2010

Phytoliths, silica microfossil that produced within and between cells and tissues of plants are especially yielded in Gramineae with many different forms and can attribute to the reconstruction of climatic and environmental changes and agriculture activity of the Quaternary. The phytoliths in soil can remain for long periods of time, because of strong resistance to physical and chemical weathering. The spatial range of study is too small due to deposition of phytoliths directly to the soil. There are difficulties of phytoliths identification because of multiplicity and redundancy, so far uniform and exact classification scheme has not been adopted. Therefore we attempted phytolith classification system applied to Korea. The paleoenvironmental reconstruction research using phytholith are applicated in many parts of studies. Also high-resolution paleoclimatic reconstruction expected to be possible using phytolith indices of Iph and Ic as well as climatic indicator of phytolith morphology.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.463-480
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• 2009

The weathering properties and provenance of loess-paleosol sequence deposited on gravel layer of river terrace in Bongdong-eup, Wangju-gun, Jeonbuk Province are examined using soil analysis, magnetic susceptibility measurement, grain size and element analysis. The Bongdong section consists of, from top to bottom, Layer 1(paleosol), Layer 2(loess), Layer 3(paleosol) and the gravel layer of river terrace. The magnetic susceptibility values show the systematic variations in the sequence and the results of grain size analysis reveal that the sequence was deposited by not fluvial or slope process, but eolian process, and that contains finer materials than the Daecheon loess and Chinese Loess Plateau. Among the results of soil analysis, organic contents indicate systematic variations similar to the magnetic susceptibility. The wet soil colors further reflect the characteristics of the sequence rather than the dry soil colors. Based on the analytical results of major and rare earth elements, the eolian materials contained in the sequence were deposited by the materials originated from the areas where the Chinese Loess Plateau has been originated or the reworked materials from the Chinese Loess Plateau, and after the depositions, the materials experienced the intensive chemical weathering under the humid-warm climatic conditions in the Korean Peninsula.