• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.154-162
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• 2019

Lateral connectivity between the channel and the floodplains has been damaged by the levee construction and channelization in most streams of South Korea. The purpose of this study was to develop a technique for easily and remotely assessing lateral connectivity using GIS in the streams and to evaluate the effectiveness of the assessment method by applying it to Cheongmi-cheon Stream, a representative stream in the central Korean Peninsula. The metrics of the lateral connectivity assessment are composed of (1) existence of remaining wetlands and (2) land use property as a habitat quality of the former floodplain outside the levee and (3) existence of levee barrier, (4) connectivity to the stream and (5) connectivity to the upland natural habitats as a connectivity from the channel through floodplain to the upland forest. According to the result of applying the assessment method to Cheongmi-cheon Stream, the lateral connectivity was severely damaged due to the levee construction and land use change in the former floodplain. The GIS-based assessment of the lateral connectivity developed in this study is expected to be used as a useful tool for identifying limitations of current connectivity in various attempts to restore lateral connectivity in riparian ecosystems.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.105-113
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• 2017

Recently mountain tourism has been promoted and introduction of railroads with utilizing mountain resources is being planned. With the government policies to increase the share of eco-friendly transportation on railroad, national double-tracking of single rail and improvement projects are on going. However, the eco-friendly railroad policy suggests the environmental impact assessment items only on air quality, water quality, geographical/geological features, fauna/flora, natural/environmental resources, noise/ vibration, and recreation/landscape. And for fauna/flora and natural/environmental resources, confirming the presence of environmental protection zone is enough to satisfy legal requirement. This study suggested to evaluate environmental/ecological values with quantitative data. Evaluation indices and evaluation items have been selected to provide the data. Each of the subject map and railroad network was overlapped. The study selected naturalness and diversity as major indicators and calculated weight values of the items under the indicators, which are to be usd for the selection of the sites for railway development. This assessment method could be applied to the environmentally friendly construction of railroads in the future.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.187-202
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• 2021

This study examined the effectiveness of wind corridor construction by analyzing the thermal environment, cold air generation, ventilation, and geographical characteristics to improve urban thermal environment and establish the basis for specialized strategy in Changwon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do. Using spatial analysis and remote sensing techniques, surface temperature, land cover and land use, wind field, and slope were measured and through this, a wind corridor analysis model was constructed. As a result of the analysis as of 2020, Changwon-si generally has land cover characteristics that are advantageous for the generation of cold air, but the temperature in most urban areas is the highest, and the temperature in areas such as north Changwon area, Jinbukmyeon, Ung-dong, and Ungcheon-dong are relatively high. There was a typical trend of high average wind speed in mountain regions and low average wind speed in urban areas. Accordingly, the north Changwon area, the former Changwon downtown area, the Hogye-ri and Pyeongseong-ri areas, and the Changpo Bay area are derived as vulnerable areas to thermal environment, and various measures to reduce temperature and improve air quality that the inflow of cold air into the area considering the characteristics of each area and securing wind ventilation between the surrounding mountains, reservoirs, and park areas were proposed.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.31 no.5 s.86
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• pp.349-359
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• 2005

In this study, we focused on the geographical and the meterological conditions, the atmospheric examination, the soil contents and compositions in order to establish cultural properties conservation plan in Gyeongju and its surroundings. Also, the transport route with environmental contaminants in Ulsan and Pohang was examined. The results could be summarized as follows ; Air pollutant and environmental contaminant was transported by two types of winds. One is induced by local winds, the other is induced by synoptic winds. Air contaminant transported from coastal regions to inland regions were associated with wind velocity. Gyeongju had good atmospheric conditions, i.e. $SO_2\;0.009{\sim}0.011ppm,\;CO\;0.6{\sim}0.8ppm,\;NO_2\;0.015{\sim}0.020ppm,\;O_3\;0.017{\sim}0.032ppm,\;PM_{10}\;46{\sim}62{\mu}g/m^3\;and\;Pb\;0.034{\sim}0.060{\mu}g/m^3$, which was below environmental air qualify standards and was little lower than those of Pohang and Ulsan. However, Ulsan and Pohang city are located on south-east coast and have many industrial facilities. Hence, air pollution problems become serious issues in Ulsan, Pohang, Busan, Daegu and other cities due to the emission of air pollutants from the various industrial facilities, incinerator and power plants, etc. The soil of Gyeongju had heavy metals conditions, i.e. $Cd\;0.01{\sim}0.08mg/kg,\;Cu\;N.D{\sim}2.39mg/kg,\;As\;N.D{\sim}0.07mg/kg,\;Hg\;N.D{\sim}0.15mg/kg,\;Pb\;0.49{\sim}1.39mg/kg,\;Cr^{+6}\;0.02{\sim}0.42mg/kg,\;Fe\;0.74{\sim}1.55mg/kg,\;Mn\;0.11{\sim}0.49mg/kg\;and\;Zn\;1.11{\sim}3.56mg/kg$. However, pH value of soil had range of $4.12{\sim}7.45$. The results showed that high pH concentration of soil could occur due to air pollution diffusion and environmental contaminant transport at Ulsan and Pohang city.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.297-304
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• 2013

Due to its excessive $CO_2$ emissions, road transport sector becomes a target for emission reduction strategies. Although precise and reliable emissions inventories are necessary for evaluating plans and strategies, developing the region-wide inventory is a difficult task mainly because of a lack of data including travel patterns and modal volumes in the reginonal context. Most existing inventory methodologies employ fuel sale data within the target region, which ignores actual regional traffic patterns and thus not suited to its geographical context. To overcome these problems, this study develops region-wide $CO_2$ emissions inventory methodology by utilizing the Korea Transport DB (KTDB). KTDB provides a number of useful information and data, such as road network with which one can identify in and out trips over the entire region, traffic volumes of various modes, distance of travel, travel speed and so on. A model of equations that allow the computation of volume of $CO_2$ emitting from the road transport activities within the target region is developed. Using the model, numerical analyses are performed for the case of Busan Metropolitan City to demonstrate the applicability of the developed model. This study is indeed exploratory in the sense that using the existing data, it develops the $CO_2$ emissions inventory methodology which can produce better results than those from conventional fuel sales methodology. This study also suggests further reresarch directions to develop more refined methodologies in region-wide basis.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.152-157
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• 2014

This study was carried out to investigate the residual sulfur dioxide residues ($SO_2$) in commercial medicinal herbs in Korea in 2013. Among a total of 116 samples of 11 different kinds of herbs, 71 samples (11 Kinds) were domestic, and 45 samples (10 Kinds) were imported. The residual contents of $SO_2$ in the samples were determinated by a modified Monier-Williams method. Of the 116 samples, 6 samples (5.2%, 4 Kinds) failed to meet the regulations for sulfur dioxide residues of KFDA in medicinal herbs. Among 6 unsuitable samples, 1 samples (1.4%) were domestic, and 5 samples (11.1%, 3 Kinds) were imported. The highest amount of sulfur dioxide residues was 1546.3 mg/kg (Lycii Fructus) in the domestic samples. Regardless of region, $SO_2$ contents were not found at Anemarrhenae Rhizoma, Citri Unshius Pericarpium, Eucommiae Cortex, Forsythiae Fructus, Gardeniae Fructus, Leonuri Herba and Lonicerae Folium et caulis. These data will be used as a basic data for the future legislation on the regulation and control of sulfur dioxide of herbal medicines.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.6D
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• pp.761-770
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• 2009

The energy efficiency and environment-friendly aspect of the railway system would be superior to other on-land ransportation systems. In a preliminary feasibility study stage and selection of optimal railway route, the energy efficiency and problems related to environment are usually considered. For the selection of optimal railway route, geographical features and facility of management are generally considered. Environment effect factors for the selection of environment-friendly railway router are focused and studied in this paper. In this study, various analysis of opinion of specialists (railway, environment, transport, urban planning, survey) and the guideline for construction of environment-friendly railway were accomplished. From these results of various analysis, 7 major categories (topography/geology, flora and fauna, Nature Property, air quality, water quality, noise/vibration, visual impact/cultural assets) were extracted. To select environment friendly railway route, many alternatives should be compared optimal route must be selected by a comprehensive assessment considering these 7 categories. To solve this problem, the selected method was AHP which simplifies the complex problems utilizing hierarchy, quantifying qualitative problems through 1:1 comparison, and extracting objective conclusions by maintaining consistency. As a result, a GUIbased program was developed which provides basic values of weighted parameters of each category defined by specialists, and a quantification of detailed assessment guidelines to ensures consistency.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.49-56
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• 2010

Euryale ferox is only annual hydrophyte among endangered plants in Korea and its seed is high valuable medicinal material. This studies were carried to find out key factors that made E. ferox endanger in Korea and to apply the results for effective management of the natural wetlands inhabited by E. ferox. We investigated the distributed sites reported by previous studies and classified the distribution-affected factors into three categories, eutrophication(hypothesis 1), soil accumulation(hypothesis 2) and increasing of water level(hypothesis 3) in the habitat. These three hypotheses were tested in the field and explained the results with the morphological characteristics of seed germination stages of E. ferox. The geographical distribution ranges of E. ferox diminished at a rate of $1^{\circ}$ latitude with about 10 natural wetlands for last 30 years. Water eutrophication in the wetland had a positive effect on the establishment of E. ferox. But higher in soil accumulation and water depth, then lower in the establishment rate of E. ferox. These results indicate that water depth in the wetland must be below 50cm during the germination season, especially in May and emergent hydrophytes filter zone is need to protect soil accumulation from soil erosion within its watershed for the effective management of wetland with E. ferox.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.793-800
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• 2018

It is necessary to determine an optimal design frequency for establishing stable flood control against frequent flood disasters. Depending on the importance of river and regional characteristics, design return periods are suggested from at least 50 years up to 200 years for river design. However, due to the wide range of applications, it is not desirable to reflect the geographical and flood control characteristics of river. In this study, Bayes theory was applied to seven evaluation factors to determine the optimal design return period of rivers in Chungcheongnam-do; urbanization flooded area, watershed area, basin coefficient, slope, water system and stream order, range of backwater effect, abnormal rainfall occurrence frequency. The potential flood damage (PFD) capacity was estimated considering climate change and the appropriate design return period was determined by analyzing the capacity of each district. We compared the design return periods of 382 rivers in Chungcheongnam-do with the existing design return periods. The number of rivers that were upgraded from the existing return period were 65, which have relatively large flooding areas and have large PFDs. Whereas, the number of rivers that were downgraded were 169.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.303-308
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• 2019

Toxoplasma gondii is an apicomplexan parasite that can cause toxoplasmosis in a wide range of warm-blooded animals including humans. In this study, we analyzed seroprevalence of T. gondii among 467 school children living in the rural areas of Pyin Oo Lwin and Naung Cho, Myanmar. The overall seroprevalence of T. gondii among school children was 23.5%; 22.5% of children were positive for T. gondii IgG, 0.4% of children were positive for T. gondii IgM, and 0.6% of children were positive for both T. gondii IgG and IgM. Geographical factors did not significantly affect the seroprevalence frequency between Pyin Oo Lwin and Naung Cho, Myanmar. No significant difference was found between males (22.2%) and females (25.0%). The overall seroprevalence among school children differed by ages (10 years old [13.6%], 11-12 years old [19.8%], 13-14 years old [24.6%], and 15-16 years old [28.0%]), however, the result was not significant. Polymerase chain reaction analysis for T. gondii B1 gene for IgG-positive and IgM-positive blood samples were negative, indicating no direct evidence of active infection. These results collectively suggest that T. gondii infection among school children in Myanmar was relatively high. Integrated and improved strategies including reinforced education on toxoplasmosis should be implemented to prevent and control T. gondii infection among school children in Myanmar.