• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.294-305
• /
• 2018

Quantitative assessment on the impact from North Korean emissions to surface particulate matter(PM) concentration in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA), South Korea is conducted using a 3-dimensional chemistry transport model. Transboundary transport of air pollutants and their precursors are important to understand regional air quality in East Asian countries. As North Korea locates in the middle of main transport pathways of Chinese pollutants, quantifiable estimation of its impact is essential for policy making in South Korean air quality management. In this study, the Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System is utilized to simulate regional air quality and its sensitivity, using the Comprehensive Regional Emissions inventory for Atmospheric Transport Experiment 2015 and the Clean Air Policy Support System 2013 emissions inventories for North and South Korea, respectively. Contributions were estimated by a brute force method, perturbing 50% of North and South Korean emissions. Simulations demonstrate that North Korean emissions contribute $3.89{\mu}g/m^3$ of annual surface PM concentrations in the SMA, which accounts 14.7% of the region's average. Impacts are dominant in nitrate and organic carbon (OC) concentrations, attributing almost 40% of SMA OC concentration during January and February. Clear seasonal variations are also found in North Korean emissions contribution to South Korea (and vice versa) due to seasonal characteristics of synoptic weather, especially by the change of seasonal flow patterns.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.789-810
• /
• 2016

Reinforced concrete (RC) bridges with both skew and curvature are pretty common in areas with complex terrains. Existing studies have shown skewed and/or curved bridges exhibit more complicated seismic performance than straight bridges, and yet related seismic risk studies are still rare. These bridges deserve more studies in low-to-moderate seismic regions than those in seismic-prone areas. This is because for bridges with irregular and complex geometric designs, comprehensive seismic analysis is not always required and little knowledge about actual seismic risks for these bridges in low-to-moderate regions is available. To provide more insightful understanding of the seismic risks and the impact from the geometric configurations, analytical fragility studies are carried out on four typical bridge designs with different geometric configurations (i.e., straight, curved, skewed, skewed and curved) in the mountain west region of the United States. The results show the curved and skewed geometries can considerably affect the bridge seismic fragility in a complex manner, underscoring the importance of conducting detailed seismic risk assessment of skewed and curved bridges in low-to-moderate seismic regions.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
• /
• 2022.06a
• /
• pp.923-928
• /
• 2022

Wildfire disasters in the United States impact lives and livelihoods by destroying private homes, businesses, community facilities, and infrastructure. Disaster victims suffer from damaged houses, inadequate shelters, inoperable civil infrastructure, and homelessness coupled with long-term recovery and reconstruction processes. Cities and their neighboring communities require an enormous commitment for a full recovery for as long as disaster recovery processes last. State, county, and municipal governments inherently have the responsibility to establish and provide governance and public services for the benefit and well being of community members. Municipal governments' comprehensive and emergency response plans are the artifacts of planning efforts that guide accomplishing those duties. Typically these plans include preparation and response to natural disasters, including wildfires. The standard wildfire planning includes and outlines (1) a wildfire hazard assessment, (2) response approaches to prevent human injury and minimize damage to physical property, and (3) near- and long-term recovery and reconstruction efforts. There is often a high level of detail in the assessment section, but the level of detail and specificity significantly lessons to general approaches in the long-term recovery subsection. This paper aims to document the extent of wildfire preparedness at the county level in general, focusing on the long-term recovery subsections of municipal plans. Based on the identified challenges, the researchers provide recommendations for better longer-term recovery and reconstruction opportunities: 1) building permit requirements, 2) exploration of the use of modular construction, 3) address through relief from legislative requirements, and 4) early, simple, funding, and the aid application process.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.251-266
• /
• 2022

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) of critical infrastructure comprises a major pillar of maintenance management, shielding public safety and economic sustainability. Although SHM is usually associated with data-driven metrics and thresholds, expert judgement is essential, especially in cases where erroneous predictions can bear casualties or substantial economic loss. Considering that visual inspections are time consuming and potentially subjective, artificial-intelligence tools may be leveraged in order to minimize the inspection effort and provide objective outcomes. In this context, timely detection of sensor malfunctioning is crucial in preventing inaccurate assessment and false alarms. The present work introduces a sensor-fault detection and interpretation framework, based on the well-established support-vector machine scheme for anomaly detection, combined with a coalitional game-theory approach. The proposed framework is implemented in two datasets, provided along the 1st International Project Competition for Structural Health Monitoring (IPC-SHM 2020), comprising acceleration and cable-load measurements from two real cable-stayed bridges. The results demonstrate good predictive performance and highlight the potential for seamless adaption of the algorithm to intrinsically different data domains. For the first time, the term "decision trajectories", originating from the field of cognitive sciences, is introduced and applied in the context of SHM. This provides an intuitive and comprehensive illustration of the impact of individual features, along with an elaboration on feature dependencies that drive individual model predictions. Overall, the proposed framework provides an easy-to-train, application-agnostic and interpretable anomaly detector, which can be integrated into the preprocessing part of various SHM and condition-monitoring applications, offering a first screening of the sensor health prior to further analysis.

• Ocean and Polar Research
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.497-506
• /
• 2011

The rapid industrial and technological development has made the human activities for the utilization of marine resources more complex. Marine spatial management is a space-based approach. It is a comprehensive and integrated management approach. The ultimate goal of marine spatial management is the "sustainable use" of marine resources. The partial approach is applied in the existing marine spatial management, mainly coastal zones which involves integrated approach. Also this showed various limitations including restricted mostly to coastal zones, and limitation to implementation tools. However, for marine spatial management to have a reasonable approach that attaches importance to the relationship between humans and the holistic ecosystem, it is important to internalize a central principle in marine spatial management that focuses on the sustainable use of marine resources. In the present study, four central principles are proposed that will eventually be applied through marine spatial management planning tools. These principles are 1) the establishment of a cooperative decision making and planning system that is based on stakeholder participation; 2) scientific assessment of the current status and impact on the basis of ecology, sociology, and economics; 3) reasonable and optimal spatial assignment based on the forecasting of future-use characteristics and environmental changes; and 4) ascribing importance to the implementation of the results of rational planning processes.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
• /
• v.41 no.3
• /
• pp.204-214
• /
• 2023

This study aimed to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the potential impact of deforestation and forest restoration on carbon storage in North Korea until 2050, employing rigorous analyses of trends of land use change in the past periods and projecting future land use change scenarios. We utilized the CA-Markov model, which can reflect spatial trends in land use changes, and verified the impact of forest restoration strategies on carbon storage by creating land use change scenarios (reforestation and non-reforestation). We employed two distinct periods of land use maps (2000 to 2010 and 2010 to 2020). To verify the overall terrestrial carbon storage in North Korea, our evaluation included estimations of carbon storage for various elements such as above-ground, below-ground, soil, and debris (including litters) for settlement, forest, cultivated, grass, and bare areas. Our results demonstrated that effective forest restoration strategies in North Korea have the potential to increase carbon storage by 4.4% by the year 2050, relative to the carbon storage observed in 2020. In contrast, if deforestation continues without forest restoration efforts, we predict a concerning decrease in carbon storage by 11.5% by the year 2050, compared to the levels in 2020. Our findings underscore the significance of prioritizing and continuing forest restoration efforts to effectively increase carbon storage in North Korea. Furthermore, the implications presented in this study are expected to be used in the formulation and implementation of long-term forest restoration strategies in North Korea, while fostering international cooperation towards this common environmental goal.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
• /
• v.40 no.2
• /
• pp.223-232
• /
• 2014

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is often employed to quantify the environmental impact of a product in a comprehensive manner. The aspects of performance and usability as well as that of eco-friendliness should be considered in an integrated manner for the market competitiveness of an eco-friendly product. The present study developed a product improvement plan for an eco-friendly electric heater by benchmarking two small-size electric heaters (companies 'H' and 'T') in terms of performance, usability, and eco-friendliness. The performance measurements such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, noise, and power consumption were collected while the two heaters were operated in a laboratory setting. Then, the usability evaluations such as aesthetics, operation satisfaction, performance satisfaction, and overall satisfaction were surveyed for the two heaters using a 5-point scale (1 for very unsatisfied and 5 for very satisfied). Lastly, the LCA analysis was conducted by following the six-step process of eco-friendly product design provided by KEITI. The analysis results of the two products being integrated with the aspects of product, service, and user, four design improvement directions such as eco-efficient, smart, modularized, and user-support were recommended for an eco-friendly electric heater. These proposed concepts would be useful to develop an eco-friendly electric heater design with a high level of market competitiveness.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.92-104
• /
• 2018

The loss of biodiversity has become a global issue. In order to cope with this problem, national biodiversity strategies and action plan (NBSAP) at national level as well as local biodiversity strategies and action plan (LBSAP) at local level have been established in many countries. In this study, we analyzed 8 domestic LBSAPs and 41 foreign LBSAPs through semantic network analysis to investigate the characteristics of domestic and foreign LBSAPs. The results showed that conservation and management were the most used keywords in both domestic and foreign LBSAPs but the ranking of other keywords used in vision, goal, strategy, and action plan sector was different. Thus, it has been found that there is a difference between domestic and foreign practical approaches to conservation and management of biodiversity. Results of the network analysis showed that the domestic network has a more detailed distributed network, while the foreign network has a more comprehensive and integrally configured dense network. These differences may be due to differences of threats to biodiversity, problem recognition, or differences in local circumstances. These results are expected to help establish LBSAP in other region or to assess the local roles to achieve the strategic goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.175-189
• /
• 2015

The objective of this study was to analyze characteristics of distribution of amphibian species and the affecting ecological factors. For the study, habitat environment factors were determined and applied to a habitat suitability model for the data collected from the Seom River in Hoengseong County and Wonju City, Gangwon Province, Korea between March 2013 to October 2013. The analyzed amphibian species were Rana nigromaculata, Hyla japonica, Rana dybowski, and Rana rugosa Temminck and Schlegel, and a logistic regression model was used with the pseudo-absence data. The result of the model analysis suggests that the major factors for Rana nigromaculata are distance to vegetation and rock and that for Hyla japonica is waterway. Rana dybowski and Rana rugosa Temminck and Schlegel have similar habitat characteristics, but the latter is shown to be dominant due to its wider habitat preference. According to the species richness model, the analyzed amphibian species are shown to have tendency to move between valleys or streams. This study quantitatively analyzed habitat environment characteristics using species distribution model, however, there is a limitation in terms of analysis on food factor and connectivity with other species. Combined with additional density or habitat analysis on birds or fish, this study can lead to more comprehensive analysis on biological environment factors.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.32 no.5
• /
• pp.338-352
• /
• 2023

As of 2019, Korea's fine dust is the most severe among 38 OECD countries, and in the same year, 「the Framework on Disaster and Safety Management」 was revised to define fine dust as a social disaster. Currently, the government is working to achieve its emission reduction goals by preparing a comprehensive fine dust management plan (2022-2023) consisting of a total of five areas, 42 tasks, and 177 detailed tasks. However, it is necessary to come up with measures in consideration of the various spatial characteristics of the city, not just as a source of emission. Therefore, in this study, the shape of the city was classified using the LCZ (Local Climate Zone) classification system into 17 types by building type and land cover type in Busan, and the average annual PM10 and PM2.5 concentration were mapped using the IDW technique. In addition, Fragstats and Moving Window were used to quantify the LCZ classification system. Finally, correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted to analyze the relationship between the LCZ classification system and PM10 and PM2.5. As a result, it was confirmed that the type of low height of the building and the type of green space with trees had a positive effect on the concentration of PM10 and PM2.5. Therefore, this study is expected to be used as basic data to establish fine dust reduction policies based on efficient spatial planning.