• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.285-295
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• 2014

In this study, we analyzed probability distribution of EMCs (Event Mean Concentration) of COD, TOC, T-N, T-P and SS from rice paddy fields and compared the mean values of observed EMCs and the median values of estimated EMCs ($EMC_{50}$) through probability distribution. The field monitoring was conducted during a period of four crop-years (from May 1, 2008, to September 30. 2011) in a rice cultivation area located in Emda-myun, Hampyeong gun, Jeollanam-do, Korea. Four probability distributions such as Normal, Log-normal, Gamma, and Weibull distribution were used to fit values of EMCs from rice paddy fields. Our results showed that the applicable probability distributions were Normal, Log-normal, and Gamma distribution for COD, and Normal, Log- Normal, Gamma and Weibull distribution for T-N, and Log-normal, Gamma and Weibull distribution for T-P and TOC, and Log-normal and Gamma distribution for SS. Log-normal and Gamma distributions were acceptable for EMCs of all water quality constituents(COD, TOC, T-N, T-P and SS). Meanwhile, mean value of observed COD was similar to median value estimated by the gamma distribution, and TOC, T-N, T-P, and SS were similar to median value estimated by log-normal distribution, respectively.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.315-322
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• 2014

After the modern industrial revolution, rivers in cities became covered and disappeared due to the pressure to develop them. Likewise, their function which is to serve as the basis of natural ecology system in the cities began to be damaged. This research demonstrated that there are a total of 268 categories when it comes to the list of plants, including 64 families, 179 genera, 230 species, 36 varieties, and 1 subspecies. When the relative abundance of the plants that were found at the target research site was studied, the secondary survey demonstrated Bromus japonicus 22.97, Artemisia princeps var. orientalis 16.76 and Erigeron annuus 15.69 while third survey demonstrated Digitaria ciliaris 26.78, Ambrosia trifida 16.29 and Aster pilosus 14.31. There were 54 species of naturalized plants that appeared. Analysis demonstrated annual plant 23 classification category (43%), perennial 11 classification category (20%), multi-perennation 17 classification category (31%), woody plant 3 classification category (6%) and others. When the naturalized plants that were found at the target research site were analyzed by the place of origin, North America and EU took up 76%, which accounts for 3/4 of the all the naturalized plants. At the target research site, naturalization degree of 5 pertained to 22 classification category (41%), which was the highest, followed by 19 classification category (35%) with naturalization degree of 3, 8 classification category (15%) with naturalization degree of 2 and 5 classification category (9%) with naturalization degree of 4 in the order mentioned. Flora of Jungnangcheon did not manifest any change compared to 10 years ago. Thus, it is necessary to increase of biodiversity efforts to improve SeoulCity's natural environment and cityscape.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.296-314
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• 2014

In recent years, Ministry of Environment (MOE) has been implementing a phased strengthening of the effluent standards for sewage treatment plants. In this regard, a comprehensive system should be developed to help check the appropriateness of such standards by specifying the grounds for standard-setting and investigating the current operation of sewage treatment plants clearly. It is necessary to establish a new standard-setting system for the effluent that is in a closer connection with the environmental criteria and rating systems. In the United States, the federal government provides guidelines on the least provisions and requirements for the Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTWs). Local governments set the same or stricter guidelines that reflect the characteristics of each state. In Japan, the sewage treatment plants are subject to both the effluent standards and the discharge acceptable limits to pubic waters under the sewerage law. Specific requirements and limits are set in accordance with local government regulations. The European Union imposes sewage treatment plants with different provisions for effluent standards, depending on the sensitivity of public waters to eutrophication. The effluent standards for sewage treatment plants are classified by pollutant loads discharged to receiving waters. MOE also needs to introduce systems for setting new parameter standards on a POTW effluent by applying statistical means and treatment efficiencies or optimal treatment techniques, as seen in the cases of the US National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) or the EU Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC).

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.141-151
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• 2019

Korea has passed the Act on the Integrated Control of Pollutant-Discharging Facilities in 2015, and the integrated environmental management under the BAT standard is underway. To summarize the nature of integrated environmental management, it is the regulation by the integration of the management of the multi-pollutant source and the technical standard of BATs. In general, in environmental economics, regulation-based on technical standards are known to be inefficient. This paper attempts to evaluate the efficiency of BAT standards from an economic point of view. A simple multi-pollutant model demonstrates that the inefficiency of the environmental tax with imperfect information in a single pollutant situation is amplified under multi-pollutant conditions. The simultaneous introduction of BAT and IPPC can be partially explained by this logic. It is also highlighted by the strengthening of BAT standards by EU, as a countermeasure to the potential deterioration of air quality caused by the change of effective environmental taxes accompanying the fuel and emission price changes.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.618-634
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• 2018

This study examined ecological network change affected by the 2020 invalidation of decisions on urban parks with a focus on Busan. The analyses were conducted to five scenarios using FRAGSTATS. The green space in scenario 1 assuming all development for unexecuted urban park would decrease by 7,339.75 ha compared to scenario 5, which assumes the entire conservation of unexecuted urban parks, and the fragmentation of the ecological space in scenario 1 increased. In scenario 1, 8.06% of the total area of core habitats and 28.23% of connectivity would decrease. However, scenario 3, which assumes the conservation of environmentally sensitive areas of unexecuted urban parks, can achieve 94% of green space and 95.6% of the connectivity of the scenario 5. Scenario 3 has effects similar to scenario 5 in terms of defragmentation. Thus, conservation of environmentally sensitive areas in parks is critical and effective in maintaining ecological networks.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

This study was carried out to understand the water quality characteristics of the initial stormwater runoff and the origin of soluble pollutants according to various rainfall conditions from a non-point source reducing facility. The water sample from this study was collected among 10 collection facilities in the G-drainage area. Specifically, five of the collection points including #1, #5, #8, #9, and #10 were reported with unknown water inflow even during non-rain conditions. The leakage characteristics of non-point pollutants from the collection facilities were then able to identify accordingly. The water quality characteristics of the stormwater runoff from the collection facilities were strongly affected by the amounts of rainfalls. The average concentrations of EC, BOD, TOC, and TN during non-rain were found to be higher than their concentrations during rain; on the other hand, the average concentrations of DO were found to be lower than its concentrations during rain. In addition, the distribution of organic components existing in the effluent of collection facilities were identified based on the dissolved organic matter analysis. In summary, the stormwater runoff was highly affected by pollutants flowing from the surrounding environment, and the amounts of hard-to-decompose humic substances were greatly increased in the collection facilities due to rain.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.242-250
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• 2023

The continuity of urban space is being destroyed by disorderly high-rise development caused by reckless development, and the resulting deterioration of urban landscape is emerging as a major problem. Disordered high-rise development is adversely affecting the urban environment, such as depriving residents of the basic rights of view and sunlight and privatizing the scenery that urban residents should enjoy together. In order to create a continuous urban landscape, indiscriminate high-rise development is restricted and compensation for the affected areas is needed. Various regulations have been carried out to this end, but it is difficult to overcome the pressure and damage to high-rise development by regulations alone. Accordingly, discussions have been underway to introduce a compensation system. Among them, discussions on the introduction of a 'Transfer of Development Right' (TDR) in which land ownership and development rights are separated and compensated for development rights have been drawing attention. However, in Korea, it is difficult to introduce the system due to various problems related to the separation of development rights. In order to overcome the limitations of the introduction of TDR, this paper analyzed the concepts and characteristics of 'Real Estate Investment Trusts' (REITs) and presented a policy model for the development right transfer system incorporating REITs for effective landscape management.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.157-165
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• 2023

In Korea, a major contaminant of farmland soils in the vicinity of abandoned mines is arsenic, for which the general soil reclamation method is contaminated soil stabilization and cover the stabilized soil with clean soil at a thickness of 40 cm. In a previous pot experiment study we confirmed the feasibility of a lower thickness (20 cm) of covering soil for such reclamation in abandoned coal mines, where arsenic contamination levels are generally lower than in metal mines. In this subsequent study a field experiment including rice plant cultivation in field test plots was conducted. For over 4 months, the transfer of arsenic from the contaminated soil to the unpolished rice grains was reduced by 44% when a clean soil covering with a thickness of 20 cm was applied. The maximum decrease (56%) was shown when the stabilization process was performed before the covering. These results reveal a lower thickness of clean soil covering has a high feasibility and it can increase cost-efficiency in the reclamation of an abandoned coal mine.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.463-472
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• 2023

The amount of damage and the area of damage to forest fires are increasing globally, and the effectiveness analysis of the restoration method after the damage is performed insufficient. This study calculated the area of forest fire damage was calculated using Sentinel-2B satellite images and stack map and the intensity of forest fire damage is analyzed according to the forest type. In addition, the vegetation index was calculated using various wavelength bands. Based on the results, the vegetation resilience by the restoration method was quantitatively. As results, areas with a high proportion of coniferous forests suffered high intensity forest fire damage, and areas with a relatively high ratio of mixed and broad-leaved forests tended to have low forest fire damage. Also, artificial forests showed a recovery of about 92.7% compared to before forest fires and natural forests showed a recovery of about 99.6% from the result of analyzing vegetation resilience in artificial and natural forests after forest fires. Accordingly, it was confirmed that natural forests after forest fire damage had superior vegetation resilience compared to artificial forests. It can be proposed that this study is meaningful in providing important information for efficiently restoring the affected target site and the selection criteria for trees to reduce forest fire damage through the evaluation of vegetation resilience by the intensity of forest fire damage and restoration methods.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.418-430
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• 2017

The quality of surface water is a very important issue to use various demands like as drinking water, industrial, agricultural and recreational usages. There has been an increasing demand for monitoring water quality of many rivers by regular measurements of various water quality variables. However precise and effective monitoring is not enough, if the acquired dataset is not analyzed thoroughly. Therefore, the aim of this study was to estimate differences of seasonal and regional water quality using multivariate data analysis for each investing tributaries in Han River. Statistical analysis was applied to the data concerning 11 mainly parameters (flow, water temperature, pH, EC, DO, BOD, COD, SS, TN, TP and TOC) for the time period 2012~2016 from 12 sampling sites. The seasonal water quality variations showed that each of BOD, TN, TP and TOC average concentration in spring and winter was higher than that of summer and fall, respectively. In summer each flow rate and average concentration of SS was higher than any other seasons, respectively. The correlation analysis were explained that EC had a strong relationship with BOD (r=0.857), COD (r=0.854), TN (r=0.899) and TOC (r=0.910). According to principal component analysis, five principal components (Eigenvalue > 1) are controlled 98.0% of variations in water quality. The first component included TP, DO, pH. The second component included EC, TN. The third component included SS. The fourth component included flow. The last component included Temp. Cluster analysis classified that spring is similar to fall and winter with water quality parameters. AnyA, WangsA, JungrA and TancA were identified as affected by organic pollution. Cluster analysis derived seasonal differences with investigating sites and better explained the principal component analysis results.