• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.325-334
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• 2022

Paspalum distichum and P. distichum var. indutum are perennial weeds of the family Poaceae that prefer moist environments such as waterfronts and waterways. The origin of both species is North America. P. distichum is distributed all over the world. However, P. distichum var. indutum occurs only in the United States, Japan, and Korea. For this reason, in many countries, P. distichum and P. distichum var. indutum are classified as the same species. In other words, P. distichum var. indutum is a different ecological type of P. distichum. Both species can reproduce and spread mainly by rhizome fragments rather than seeds. This rhizome has a characteristic that it does not germinate if it is buried in the ground with depth of more than 3 cm. As a management method for P. distichum and P. distichum var. indutum in agricultural lands (paddy fields), it is effective to combine cultural control and chemical control methods. In other words, combining deep plowing and harrowing can suppress the budding of water sparrow that has invaded paddy fields or fallow paddy fields. After that, these two species that germinate can be controlled by spraying soil treatment herbicides such as butachlor and thiobencarb or foliar treatment herbicides such as cyhalofop-butyl and fenoxaprop-p-ethyl.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.363-384
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• 2009

This study aimed at finding directions for Korean agriculture to establish a new paradigm of sustainable development. Various problematic issues and concerns in the environment necessitate the transformation of Korea's development paradigm from unconditional growth to "Green Growth" through new policies on green value and review of various advanced researches. In this research, the environment-friendly agriculture's problems, particularly in agribusiness were analyzed. Drawing from Michael Porter's Value Chain Analysis, this research developed a value chain model in agriculture that reflects the environment and the present situations. Future directions in the agriculture sector were also discussed. Korea realized food self-sufficiency through the green revolution in the early 1970s. However, a lot of problems have also occurred, including ground and water pollution and the destruction of ecosystems as a result of the overuse of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. In the late 1970s, the growing interest on environment-friendly agriculture led to the introduction of sustainable methods and techniques. Unfortunately however, these were not innovative enough to foster environment-friendly agriculture. Thereafter, the consumers' distrust on agricultural products has worsened and concerns about health have increased. In view of this, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries introduced in December 1993 a system of Quality-Certified Products for organic and pesticide-free agri-foods. Although a fundamental step toward the sustainability of the global environment, this system was not enough to promote environment-friendly agriculture. In 2008, Korea's vision is for "Low Carbon Green Growth" to move forward while also coping with climate change. But primary sectors in a typical value chain do not consider the green value of their operations nor look at production from an environmental perspective. In order to attain sustainable development, there is a need to use less resources and energy than what is presently used in Korean agricultural and value production. The typical value chain should be transformed into a "closed-loop" such that the beginning and the end of the chain are linked together. Such structure allows the flow of materials, products and even wastes among participants in the chain in a sustained cycle. This may result in a zero-waste sustainable production without destroying the ecosystem.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.169-177
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• 2011

The impacts of climate change on paddy irrigation water demands in Korea have been analyzed. High-resolution ($27{\times}27\;km$) climate data for the SRES A2 scenario produced by the Korean Meteorological Research Institute (METRI) and the observed baseline climatology dataset were used. The outputs from the ECHO-G GCM model were dynamically downscaled using the MM5 regional model by the METRI. The Geographic information system (GIS) was used to produce maps showing the spatial changes in irrigation water requirements for rice paddies. The results showed that the growing season mean temperature for future scenarios was projected to increase by $1.5^{\circ}C$ (2020s), $3.3^{\circ}C$ (2050s) and $5.3^{\circ}C$ (2080s) as compared with the baseline value (1971~2000). The growing season rainfall for future scenarios was projected to increase by 0.1% (2020s), 4.9% (2050s) and 19.3% (2080s). Assuming cropping area and farming practices remain unchanged, the total volumetric irrigation demand was projected to increase by 2.8% (2020s), 4.9% (2050s) and 4.5% (2080s). These projections are contrary to the previous study that used HadCM3 outputs and projected decreasing irrigation demand. The main reason for this discrepancy is the difference with the projected climate of the GCMs used. The temporal and spatial variations were large and should be considered in the irrigation water resource planning and management in the future.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.317-326
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• 1997

The Palmer Drought Severity Index has been ectensively used to quantitatively evaluate the drought severity at a location for both agricultural and water resources management purposes. In the present study the Palmer-type formula for drought index is drived for the whole country by analyzing the monthly rainfall and meteorological data at nine stations with a long period of records. The formula is then used to compute the monthly drought severity index at sixty-eight rainfall stations located throughout the country. For the past five significant drought periods the spatial variation of each drought is shown as a nationwide drought index map of a specified duration from which the relative severity of drought throughout the country is identifiable for a specific drought period. A comparative study is made to evaluate the relative severity of the significant droughts occurred in Korea since 1960's. It turned out that '94-'95 drought was one of the worst both in the areal extent and drought severity. It is found that the Palmer-type formula is a very useful tool in quantitatively evaluating the severity of drought over an area as well as at a point. When rainfall and meteorological forecast become feasible on a long-term basis the method could also be utilized as a tool for drought forecasting.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.423-431
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• 2001

Animals are one of the important memberships of the food chain. The low-efficiency rule of nutrient transfer from one member to the next in the food chain determines the low efficiency of animal agriculture for human food. On the average, about 20% feed proteins and 15% feed energy can be converted into edible nutrients for humans. The rest proportion of feed nutrients is exposed to the environment. Environmental pollution, therefore, is inevitable as animal agriculture grows intensively and extensively. The over-loading of the environment by nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus from animal manure results in soil and water spoilage. The emission of gases like $CH_2$, $CO_2$, $SO_2$, NO, $NO_2$ by animals are one of the contributors for the acidification of the environment and global warming. The inefficient utilization of natural resources and the probable unsafety of animal products to human health are also a critical environmental issue. Improving the conversion efficiency of nutrients in the food chain is the fundamental strategy for solving environmental issues. Specifically in animal agriculture, the strategy includes the improvements of animal genotypes, nutritional and feeding management, animal health, housing systems and waste disposal programs. Animal nutrition science plays a unique and irreplaceable role in the control of nutrient input and output in either products or wastes. Several nutritional methods are proved to be effective in alleviating environmental pollution. A lot of nutritional issues, however, remain to be further researched for the science of animal nutrition to be a strong helper for sustainability of animal agriculture.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.88-95
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• 2020

Object: The purpose of this study was to select priority points for soil management using the location of groundwater and to suggest this method for soil contamination surveys. Method: Groundwater impact range was set to an area of 100 to 500 meters from the center point of agricultural groundwater wells. Data on industrial complex and factory areas, areas of stored or used ores and scrap metals, areas associated with waste and recycling, and traffic-related facilities areas were collected and checked for whether they fall within the groundwater impact range. Longitude and latitude coordinates of these data were mapped on the groundwater impact range using QGIS (Quantum Geographic Information System). Results: Considering the groundwater impact range, the points were selected as follows: 589 points were selected from 6,811 factories and 259 points were selected from 1,511 recycling business points. Traffic-related facility areas were divided between gas stations, bus depots, and auto mechanics. Thirty-four points were selected from 149 bus depots and 573 points were selected from 6,013 auto mechanic points. From the 2,409 gas station points, 323 were selected. Conclusion: Contaminated soil influences groundwater and crops, which can harm human health. However, soil pollution is not easily identified, so it is difficult to determine what has occurred. Pollution must be prevented beforehand and contaminated soil found. By selecting and investigating soil contamination survey points in consideration of the location of groundwater wells, we can safely manage water resources by preventing groundwater contamination in advance.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.95-102
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• 2015

This study conducted the survey on the resources of traditional villages based on AHP in the subjects with the specialists in Korea and China to seek the resource evaluation standards to apply the preservation and development of traditional villages, and the differences of the importance on the resources among the specialists in both countries. We classified three levels of evaluation items to aim the deductions of the importance and priority in the resources of traditional villages. Upon the analysis results, natural resources were important in the level 1; environmental, historical, facility resources were important in the level 2; and the factors such as air, topography, traditional houses, agricultural landscape, shared community facilities, interchanges between urban and rural areas, family activities, and so on were important in the level 3. The factors that both Korean and Chinese groups evaluated as the most important ones were the same. In terms of overall importance by evaluation items, the factors such as air, water quality, noise, traditional houses, topography, shared community facilities, and so on were rated as relatively important in both Korean and Chinese groups. That is, the traditional villages have the necessity to preserve the cultural resources like their duties, however, it is required to control the natural environment with good quality preferentially. This study results can compare the importance on the resources of traditional village between Korea and China. Moreover, with calculation of the priority and scores for the preservation and management of traditional villages, they are expected to be used as the tool to apply the quantitative data in the evaluation process of traditional village resources in both countries.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.3-15
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• 2008

North Korea is one of the vulnerable countries facing the threat of a drought, so that it is unavoidable to experience fatal damage when drought is occurred, and it is necessary to improve the drought response capability of water resources systems. However, it is still difficult to find research efforts for drought characteristics and drought management in North Korea. This study is to quantify drought duration and magnitude and to analyze drought characteristics in North Korea. In order to quantitatively identify historical drought conditions and to evaluate their variability, drought indices are commonly used. In this study, drought indices including dry-day index, deciles of normal precipitation, Phillips drought index, standardized precipitation index and Palmer drought severity index are calculated and compared monthly using the weather data for the twenty one meteorological stations in North Korea. The indices compared with the drought damage records that have reported from 1990 to present to understand how the indices can explain the drought. A comparative study was also conducted to evaluate the relative severity of the significant droughts occurred during 2000 and 2001 which were reported as the worst drought in North Korea. Drought indices calculated from this study demonstrated that those can be the effective tools in quantitatively evaluating drought severity and measures of drought. Thus it is recommended the distributed trend of drought be considered when the plan or measures for drought in North Korea are established.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.1137-1147
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• 2022

River and groundwater stages are the main elements in the hydrologic cycle. They are spatially correlated and can be used to evaluate hydrological and agricultural drought. Stochastic simulation is often performed independently on hydrological variables that are spatiotemporally correlated. In this setting, interdependency across mutual variables may not be maintained. This study proposes the Bayesian vector autoregression model (VAR) to capture the interdependency between multiple variables over time. VAR models systematically consider the lagged stages of each variable and the lagged values of the other variables. Further, an autoregressive model (AR) was built and compared with the VAR model. It was confirmed that the VAR model was more effective in reproducing observed interdependency (or cross-correlation) between river and ground stages, while the AR generally underestimated that of the observed.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.615-622
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to evaluate microbial contamination of melons in Korea. A total of 123 samples including melon fruits, leaves, seeds, soils, and irrigation water were collected from farms and markets to detect total aerobic bacteria, coliform, Escherichia coli, and pathogenic bacteria such as Bacillus cereus, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., and Staphylococcus aureus. Samples were collected from Iksan and Nonsan farms to monitor bacterial levels on pre-market melons. The total aerobic and coliform bacteria on melon cultivation were between 0.43 and 6.65 log CFU $g^{-1}$, and 0.67 and 2.91 log CFU $g^{-1}$, respectively. Bacillus cereus, a fecal coliform, was detected in soils and melon leaves from Iksan farm at 2.95, 0.73 log CFU $g^{-1}$, respectively, and in soils from Nonsan farm at 3.16 log CFU $g^{-1}$. Market melon samples were collected to assay bacterial load on melon being sold to consumers. The contamination levels of total aerobic bacteria in agricultural markets, big-box retailers, and traditional markets were 4.82, 3.94, 3.99 log CFU $g^{-1}$, respectively. The numbers of coliform in melon on the markets ranged from 0.09 to 0.49 log CFU $g^{-1}$. Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella spp., and Staphylococcus aureus were not detected in any samples. The count of total aerobic bacteria on melon seeds ranged from 0.33 to 3.34 log CFU $g^{-1}$. This study found that irrigation water, soil, manure and various farm work activities including post-harvest processes were latent sources of microbial contamination. These results suggest that hygienic management and monitoring of soil, water, and agricultural material should be performed to reduce microbial contamination in melon production.