• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.105-114
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• 2012

Soil moisture plays a pivotal role in hydrological processes, especially in the forest which covers more than 64% of the national land. Soil moisture was monitored to analyze soil moisture change characteristics in terms of time and soil layers in this study. 2 Years soil moisture change data was obtained from the experimental nut pine forest and statistical analysis including auto-correlation and cross-corelation among soil moisture data from different soil layers was conducted. Using the monitored soil moisture data, a relationship between soil moisture change and precipitation was analyzed and seasonal soil moisture change characteristics were analyzed. From the result of inter-relationships among soil layers in terms of season and time lag, soil moisture change characteristics in the nut pine forest were upper soil layers were much sensitive than lowers, and seasonal variation if soil moisture for upper soil layers were bigger than lowers showing low correlation with precipitation in winter and spring due to freezing and snowfalls.

• Water Engineering Research
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.31-43
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• 2003

The impacts of climate change on soil moisture in sub - Arctic watershed simulated by using the hydrologic model. A range of arbitrary changes in temperature and precipitation are applied to the runoff model to study the sensitivity of soil moisture due to potential changes in precipitation and temperature. The sensitivity analysis indicates that changes in precipitation are always amplified in soil moisture with the amplification factor for flow. The change in precipitation has effect on the soil moisture in the catchment. The percentage change in soil moisture levels can be greater than the percentage change in precipitation. Compared to precipitation, temperature increases or decreases alone have impacts on the soil moisture. These results show the potential for climate change to bring about soil moisture that may require a significant planning response. They are also indicative of the fact that hydrological impacts affecting water supply may be important in consider-ing the cost and benefits of potential climate change.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.658-665
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• 2015

Temporal and spatial variation of soil moisture is important for understanding patterns of climate change, for developing and evaluating land surface models, for designing surface soil moisture observation networks, and for determining the appropriate resolution for satellite-based remote sensing instruments for soil moisture. In this study, we measured several soil moistures in upland soil using Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) Soil Moisture Content (SMC) during eight-month period in Chungbuk province. The upland soil moisture properties were expressed by simple statistical methods (average, standard deviation and coefficient of variation) from the monthly context. Supplementary studies were also performed about the effect of top soil texture on the soil moisture responses. If the results from this study were utilized well in specific cities and counties in Korea, it would be helpful to establish the countermeasures and action plans for preventing disasters because it was possible to compare with the relationship between soil moisture and top soil texture of each region. And it would be the fundamental data for estimating the effect of future agricultural plan.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.235-241
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• 2014

A ground-based microwave scatterometer has an advantage for monitoring soil moisture content using multi-polarization, multi-frequencies and various incidence angles. In this paper, ground-based multi-frequency (L-, C-, and X-band) polarimetric scatterometer system capable of making observations every 10 min was used to monitor the soil moisture conditions in a corn field over an entire growth cycle. Measurements of volumetric soil moisture were obtained and their relationships to the backscatter observations were examined. Time series of soil moisture content was not corresponding with backscattering coefficient pattern over the whole growth stage, although it increased until early July (Day Of Year, DOY 160). We examined the relationship between the backscattering coefficients from each band and soil moisture content of the field. Backscattering coefficients for all bands were not correlated with soil moisture content when considered over the entire stage ($r{\leq}0.48$). However, L-band Horizontal transmit and Horizontal receive polarization (HH) had a good correlation with soil moisture ($r=0.85^{**}$) when LAI was lower than 2. Prediction equations for soil moisture were developed using the L-HH data. Relation between L-HH and soil moisture shows linear pattern and related with soil moisture content ($R^2=0.77$). Results from this study show that backscattering coefficients of microwave scatterometer appear to be effective to estimate soil moisture content in the field level.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.571-581
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• 2015

Soil moisture content is generally accepted as an important factor to understand the process of crop growth and is the basis of earth system models for analysis and prediction of the crop condition. To continuously monitor soil moisture changes at kilometer scale, it is demanded to create high resolution data from the current, several tens of kilometers. In this paper we described a downscaling method for Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) Soil Moisture Content (SMC) from 10 km to 30 m resolution using a soil texture and field measurements that have a high correlation with the SMC. As a result, the soil moisture variations of both data (before and after downscaling) were identical, and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of SMC exhibited the low values. Also, time series analyses showed that three kinds of SMC data (field measurement, original AMSR2, and downscaled AMSR2) had very similar temporal variations. Our method can be applied to downscaling of other soil variables and can contribute to monitoring small-scale changes of soil moisture by providing high resolution data.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.65-76
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• 2015

Estimating water requirements for upland crops are characterized by standing soil moisture condition during the entire crop growth period. However, scarce rainfall and intermittent dry spells often cause soil moisture depletion resulting in unsaturated condition in the fields. Changes in rainfall patterns due to climate change have significant influence on the increasing the occurrence of extreme soil moisture depletion. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate agricultural drought for upland crop water planning and management in the context of climate change. The objective of this study is to predict the impacts of climate change on agricultural drought for upland crops and changes in the temporal trends of drought characteristics. First, the changes in crop evapotranspiration and soil moisture in the six upland crops, such as Soybeans, Maize, Potatoes, Red Peppers, Chinese Cabbage (spring and fall) were analyzed by applying the soil moisture model from commonly available crop and soil characteristics and climate data, and were analyzed for the past 30 years (1981-2010), and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) climate change scenarios (2011-2100). Second, the changes on the temporal trends of drought characteristics were performed using run theory, which was used to compare drought duration, severity, and magnitude to allow for quantitative evaluations under past and future climate conditions.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.117-123
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• 2000

Changing patterns and the possibility of climate change in the area of Cheiudo island, the southernmost Island in Korea, were analyzed using daily temperature and Precipitation data observed at the Cheiu Regional Meteorological Office from May 1923 to December 1998. A hydrologic simulation model "BROOK" was used to simulate and analyze the dynamics of daily soil moisture content and soil moisture deficit by applying the daily weather data. During the period, significantly increasing pattern was observed in temperature data of both annual and monthly basis, while no significantly changing pattern was observed in precipitation data. During the last 76 years. mean annual temperature was observed to have risen about 1.4$^{\circ}C$, which may show the Possibility of the initiation of climate change on the island whose validity should be tested in future studies after long-term studies on temperature. Based on the simulation, due to increased temperature, significant increase was predicted in evapotranspiration. while no significant decrease was detected in simulated soil moisture content during the period. Changing pattern of annual soil moisture content was markedly different from those of precipitation. In some dominant trees, negative effects of the drought of the late season for the previous year were shown to be statistically significant to radial growth of the tree for the current year. As annual variation of radial growth of trees is mainly affected by the soil moisture content. the information on the dynamics of soil moisture deficit possibly provides us with useful information for the interpretation of tree growth decline on the mountain. mountain.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1-9
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• 2011

Forest area covers 64 % of the national land of Korea and the forest plays a pivotal role in the hydrological process such as flood, drought, runoff, infiltration, evapotranspiration, etc. In this study, soil moisture monitoring for conifer forest in experimental forest of Seoul National University has been conducted using FDR (Frequency Domain Reflection) for 6 different soil layers, 10, 20, 30, 60, 90 and 120 cm during 2009~2010, and precipitation data was collected from nearby AWS (Automatic Weather Station). Soil moisture monitoring data were used to estimate soil moisture recession constant (SMRC) for analyzing soil moisture recession characteristics. From the results, empirical soil moisture recession equations were estimated and validated to determine the feasibility of the result, and soil moisture contents of measured and calculated showed a similar tendency from April to November. Thus, the results can be applied for soil moisture estimation and provided the basic knowledge in forest soil moisture consumption. Nevertheless, this approach demonstrated applicability limitations during winter and early spring season due to freezing and melting of snow and ice causing peculiar change of soil moisture contents.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.79-88
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• 1998

This study was conducted to measure the moisture content of soil using RF impedance in the range of 1 to 30MHz. Considering the water potential flow in the soils, two types of sensor such as parallel cylinder and perpendicular plate type were fabricated and tested. The capacitance and resistance of sonsors for soil samples having moisture content range of 2 to 27% were measured by Q-meter (HP4342). The higher soil moisture content was and the larger soil bulk density was, the more the capacitance of sensors increased. To eliminate the effect of bulk density on measuring soil moisture content using RF impedance, two kinds of model having the density independent functions such as the ratio of capacitance change to conductance change and weight of water and dry soils respectively were developed and estimated by regression analysis.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.11
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• pp.302-309
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• 2017

Background: Large-scale land-use change is being caused by various socioeconomic problems. Land-use change is necessarily accompanied by changes in the regional carbon balance in terrestrial ecosystems and affects climate change. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the correlation between environmental factors altered by land-use change and the carbon balance. To address this issue, we studied the characteristics of soil carbon flux and soil moisture content related to rainfall events in mountain pastures converted from deciduous forest in Korea. Results: The average soil moisture contents (SMC) during the study period were 23.1% in the soil respiration (SR) plot and 25.2% in the heterotrophic respiration (HR) plot. The average SMC was increased to 2.1 and 1.1% in the SR and HR plots after rainfall events, respectively. In addition, saturated water content was 29.36% in this grassland. The soil water content was saturated under the consistent rainfall of more than $5mm\;h^{-1}$ rather than short-term heavy rainfall event. The average SR was increased to 28.4% after a rainfall event, but the average HR was decreased to 70. 1%. The correlation between soil carbon flux rates and rainfall was lower than other environmental factors. The correlation between SMC and soil carbon flux rates was low. However, HR exhibited a tendency to be decreased when SMC was 24.5%. In addition, the correlation between soil temperature and respiration rate was significant. Conclusions: In a mountain pasture ecosystem, rainfall induced the important change of soil moisture content related to respiration in soil. SR and HR were very sensitive to change of SMC in soil surface layer about 0-10-cm depth. SR was increased by elevation of SMC due to a rainfall event, and the result was assumed from maintaining moderate soil moisture content for respiration in microorganism and plant root. However, HR was decreased in long-time saturated condition of soil moisture content. Root has obviously contributed to high respiration in heavy rainfall, but it was affected to quick depression in respiration under low rainfall. The difference of SMC due to rainfall event was causative of a highly fluctuated soil respiration rate in the same soil temperature condition. Therefore, rainfall factor or SMC are to be considered in predicting the soil carbon flux of grassland ecosystems for future climate change.