• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_4
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• pp.1935-1943
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• 2022

The development and application of a high-resolution soil moisture mapping method using satellite imagery has been considered one of the major research themes in remote sensing. In this study, soil moisture mapping in the test area of Jeju Island was performed. The soil moisture was calculated with optical images using linearly adjusted Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) polarization images and incident angle. SAR Backscatter data, Analysis Ready Data (ARD) provided by Google Earth Engine (GEE), was used. In the soil moisture processing process, the optical image was applied to normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) by surface reflectance of KOMPSAT-3 satellite images and the land cover map of Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI). When the SAR image and the optical images are fused, the reliability of the soil moisture product can be improved. To validate the soil moisture mapping product, a comparative analysis was conducted with normalized difference water index (NDWI) products by the KOMPSAT-3 image and those of the Landsat-8 satellite. As a result, it was shown that the soil moisture map and NDWI of the study area were slightly negative correlated, whereas NDWI using the KOMPSAT-3 images and the Landsat-8 satellite showed a highly correlated trend. Finally, it will be possible to produce precise soil moisture using KOMPSAT optical images and KOMPSAT SAR images without other external remotely sensed images, if the soil moisture calculation algorithm used in this study is further developed for the KOMPSAT-5 image.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.476-482
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• 2014

In this study, we analyzed the effect of corn growth on the radar backscattering coefficient. At first, we measured the backscattering coefficients of various corn fields using a polarimetric scatterometer system. The backscattering coefficients of the corn fields were also computed using the 1st-order VRT(Vector Radiative Transfer) model with field-measured input parameters. Then, we analyzed the experimental and numerical backscattering coefficients of corn fields. As a result, we found that the backscatter from an underlying soil layer is dominant for early growing stage. On the other hand, for vegetative stage with a higher LAI(Leaf-Area-Index), the backscatter from vegetation canopy becomes dominant, and its backscattering coefficients increase as incidence angle increases because of the effect of leaf angle distribution. It was also found that the estimated backscattering coefficients agree quite well with the field-measured radar backscattering coefficients with an RMSE(Root Mean Square Error) of 1.32 dB for VV-polarization and 0.99 dB for HH-polarization. Finally, we compared the backscattering characteristics of vegetation and soil layers with various LAI values.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.85-91
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• 2014

Ground-based polarimetric scatterometers have been effective tools to monitor the growth of crop with multi-polarization and frequencies and various incident angles. An important advantage of these systems that can be exploited is temporal observation of a specific crop target. Polarimetric backscatter data at L-, C- and X-bands were acquired every 10 minutes. We analyzed the relationships between L-, C- and X-band signatures, biophysical measurements over the whole corn growth period. The Vertical transmit and Vertical receive polarization (VV) backscattering coefficients for all bands were greater than those of the Horizontal transmit and Horizontal receive polarization (HH) until early-July, and then thereafter HH-polarization was greater than VV-polarization or Horizontal transmit and Vertical receive polarization (HV) until the harvesting stage (Day Of Year, DOY 240). The results of correlation analysis between the backscattering coefficients for all bands and corn growth data showed that L-band HH-polarization (L-HH) was the most suited for monitoring the fresh weight ($r=0.95^{***}$), dry weight ($r=0.95^{***}$), leaf area index ($r=0.86^{**}$), and vegetation water content ($r=0.93^{***}$). Retrieval equations were developed for estimating corn growth parameters using L-HH. The results indicated that L-HH could be used for estimating the vegetation biophysical parameters considered here with high accuracy. Those results can be useful in determining frequency and polarization of satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar stem and in designing a future ground-based microwave system for a long-term monitoring of corn.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.26-67
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• 2020

Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) is able to photograph the earth's surface regardless of weather conditions, day and night. Because of its possibility to search for hydrological factors such as soil moisture and groundwater, and its importance is gradually increasing in the field of water resources. SAR began to be mounted on satellites in the 1970s, and about 15 or more satellites were launched as of 2020, which around 10 satellites will be launched within the next 5 years. Recently, various types of SAR technologies such as enhancement of observation width and resolution, multiple polarization and multiple frequencies, and diversification of observation angles were being developed and utilized. In this paper, a brief history of the SAR system, as well as studies for estimating soil moisture and hydrological components were investigated. Up to now hydrological components that can be estimated using SAR satellites include soil moisture, subsurface groundwater discharge, precipitation, snow cover area, leaf area index(LAI), and normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI) and among them, soil moisture is being studied in 17 countries in South Korea, North America, Europe, and India by using the physical model, the IEM(Integral Equation Model) and the artificial intelligence-based ANN(Artificial Neural Network). RADARSAT-1, ENVISAT, ASAR, and ERS-1/2 were the most widely used satellite, but the operation has ended, and utilization of RADARSAT-2, Sentinel-1, and SMAP, which are currently in operation, is gradually increasing. Since Korea is developing a medium-sized satellite for water resources and water disasters equipped with C-band SAR with the goal of launching in 2025, various hydrological components estimation researches using SAR are expected to be active.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.55-65
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• 2014

Radar remote sensing is appropriate for rice monitoring because the areas where this crop is cultivated are often cloudy and rainy. Especially, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can acquire remote sensing information with a high temporal resolution in tropical and subtropical regions due to its all-weather capability. This paper analyzes the relationships between backscattering coefficients of rice measured by RADARSAT-2 SAR and growth parameters during a rice growth period. And we applied the relationships to crop monitoring of paddy rice in North Korea. As a result, plant height and Leaf Area Index (LAI) increased until Day Of Year (DOY) 234 and then decreased, while fresh weight and dry weight increased until DOY 253. Correlation coefficients revealed that Horizontal transmit and Horizontal receive polarization (HH)-polarization backscattering coefficients were correlated highly with plant height (r=0.95), fresh weight (r=0.92), vegetation water content (r=0.91), LAI (r=0.90), and dry weight (r=0.89). Based on the observed relationships between backscattering coefficients and variables of cultivation, prediction equations were developed using the HH-polarization backscattering coefficients. Concerning the evaluation for the applicability of the LAI distribution from RADARSAT-2, the LAI statistic was evaluated in comparison with LAI distribution from RapidEye image. And LAI distributions in Pyongyang were presented to show spatial variability for unaccessible areas.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.1
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• pp.94-97
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• 2006

Timber stand age information of timber in industrialized plantation forest is generally collected by field surveying which is labor-intensive, time-consuming, and very costly. It is also inconsistent in analyses perspective. As an alternative, The objective of this research is to present a practical solution for estimating timber age of loblolly pine plantation using Landsat thematic mapper (TM) images, shuttle radar topography mission (SRTM), and national elevation dataset (NED). A multivariate regression model was developed based upon satellite image-based information (i.e.normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), tasseled cap (TC) transformation, and derived tree heights). A residual studentized technique was applied to remove potential outliers. After that, a refined age estimation model with a correlation coefficient R-square of 84.6% was obtained. Finally, the feasibility test of estimated model was performed by comparing estimated and measured stand ages of timber plantations using test datasets of plantation stands (2,032 stands). The result shows that the proposed method of this study can estimate loblolly pine stand age within an error of $2{\sim}3$ years in an effective and consistent way in terms of time and cost.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.46 no.11
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• pp.1129-1140
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• 2013

Precipitation is one of the important factors in the hydrological cycle. It needs to understand accurate of spatial precipitation field because it has large spatio-temporal variability. Precipitation data obtained through the Tropical Rainfall Monitoring Mission (TRMM) 3B43 product is inaccurate because it has 25 km space scale. Downscaling of TRMM 3B43 product can increase the accuracy of spatial precipitation field from 25 km to 1 km scale. The relationship between precipitation and the normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI) (1 km space scale) which is obtained from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) sensor loaded in Terra satellite is variable at different scales. Therefore regression equations were established and these equations apply to downscaling. Two renormalization strategies, Geographical Difference Analysis (GDA) and Geographical Ratio Analysis (GRA) are implemented for correcting the differences between remote sensing-derived and rain gauge data. As for considering the GDA method results, biases, the root mean-squared error (RMSE), MAE and Index of agreement (IOA) is equal to 4.26 mm, 172.16 mm, 141.95 mm, 0.64 in 2009 and 17.21 mm, 253.43 mm, 310.56 mm, 0.62 in 2011. In this study, we can see the 1km spatial precipitation field map over Korea. It will be possible to get more accurate spatial analysis of the precipitation field through using the additional rain gauges or radar data.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.449-451
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• 2007

In the commercially managed timber lands, the information such as height, age, stand density, canopy closure and leaf area index need to be collected periodically. Stand volume is the most fundamental information in the valuation of timber, however, stand age information is the primary element of forest inventory and these two are highly correlated. Conventional method of collecting stand age information by field surveys such as ring count method is accurate; however, it is expensive, labor-intensive and time consuming. In the present study it was aimed to collect stand age information using modem techniques in a commercially managed timberland situated in Tennessee, USA. The Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) of three different periods, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), National elevation dataset (NED) and field inventory data were used. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and Tasselled Cap (TC) transformation techniques were applied on the TM and ETM+ data. The regression analysis was carried out to identify the correlation between stand age and NDVI, TC. In the present study about 2,469 datasets were analyzed. The $R^{2}$ value for stand age estimation was 0.713. The NDVI, TC2 and TC3 were found to produce accurate timber age information.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.52-63
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• 2021

In previous research, the coastal wetlands were detected by using the vegetation indices or land cover classification maps derived from the multispectral bands of the satellite or aerial imagery, and this approach caused the various limitations for detecting the coastal wetlands with high accuracy due to the difficulty of acquiring both land cover and topographic information by using the single remote sensing data. This research suggested the efficient methodology for detecting the coastal wetlands using the sentinel-2 satellite image and SRTM(Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) DEM (Digital Elevation Model) acquired in Gomsoman Bay, west coasts of South Korea through the following steps. First, the NDWI(Normalized Difference Water Index) image was generated using the green and near-infrared bands of the given Sentinel-2 satellite image. Then, the binary image that separating lands and waters was generated from the NDWI image based on the pixel intensity value 0.2 as the threshold and the other binary image that separating the upper sea level areas and the under sea level areas was generated from the SRTM DEM based on the pixel intensity value 0 as the threshold. Finally, the coastal wetland map was generated by overlaying analysis of these binary images. The generated coastal wetland map had the 94% overall accuracy. In addition, the other types of wetlands such as inland wetlands or mountain wetlands were not detected in the generated coastal wetland map, which means that the generated coastal wetland map can be used for the coastal wetland management tasks.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.5_3
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• pp.1109-1123
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• 2020

In South Korea with forest as a major land cover class (over 60% of the country), many wildfires occur every year. Wildfires weaken the shear strength of the soil, forming a layer of soil that is vulnerable to landslides. It is important to identify the severity of a wildfire as well as the burned area to sustainably manage the forest. Although satellite remote sensing has been widely used to map wildfire severity, it is often difficult to determine the severity using only the temporal change of satellite-derived indices such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR). In this study, we proposed an approach for determining wildfire severity based on machine learning through the synergistic use of Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar-C data and Sentinel-2A Multi Spectral Instrument data. Three wildfire cases-Samcheok in May 2017, Gangreung·Donghae in April 2019, and Gosung·Sokcho in April 2019-were used for developing wildfire severity mapping models with three machine learning algorithms (i.e., Random Forest, Logistic Regression, and Support Vector Machine). The results showed that the random forest model yielded the best performance, resulting in an overall accuracy of 82.3%. The cross-site validation to examine the spatiotemporal transferability of the machine learning models showed that the models were highly sensitive to temporal differences between the training and validation sites, especially in the early growing season. This implies that a more robust model with high spatiotemporal transferability can be developed when more wildfire cases with different seasons and areas are added in the future.