• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.85-107
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• 2021

Wildfires have become increasingly common and intense in South Korea because of climate change, but few have recognized the catastrophic level of the problem. Given the significant impact of wildfires, emergency management stakeholders must have effective risk communication structures for rapidly responding to such phenomena and overcoming geographical difficulties. Despite the country spending billions of dollars to build a big databased early warning system, risk communication flow during the 2017 Gangneung wildfire was ineffective, thereby causing substantial economic, social, and environmental losses. To examine the patterns of information exchange in South Korea's risk communication networks and their structural characteristics during the wildfire, we conducted semantic and network analyses of real-time data collected from social media. The results showed that the inefficient flow of risk information prevented emergency responders from adequately assessing the emergency and protecting the population. This study provides new insights into effective risk communication responses to catastrophic events and methods of research on webometric approaches to emergency management.

• Journal of Cadastre & Land InformatiX
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.107-120
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• 2017

There are many wildfire risk indices worldwide, but objective comparisons between such various wildfire risk indices and surface dryness indices have not been conducted for the wildfire cases in Korea. This paper describes a sensitivity analysis on the wildfire risk indices and surface dryness indices for Korea using LDAPS(Local Analysis and Prediction System) meteorological dataset on a 1.5-km grid and MODIS(Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite images on a 1-km grid. We analyzed the meteorology-based wildfire risk indices such as the Australian FFDI(forest fire danger index), the Canadian FFMC(fine fuel moisture code), the American HI(Haines index), and the academically presented MNI(modified Nesterov index). Also we examined the satellite-based surface dryness indices such as NDDI(normalized difference drought index) and TVDI(temperature vegetation dryness index). As a result of the comparisons between the six indices regarding 120 wildfire cases with the area damaged over 1ha during the period between January 2013 and May 2017, we found that the FFDI and FFMC showed a good predictability for most wildfire cases but the MNI and TVDI were not suitable for Korea. The NDDI can be used as a proxy parameter for wildfire risk because its average CDF(cumulative distribution function) scores were stably high irrespective of fire size. The indices tested in this paper should be carefully chosen and used in an integrated way so that they can contribute to wildfire forecasting in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.337-342
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• 2019

This letter describes the development of WRI (Wildfire Risk Index) using GDAPS (Global Data Assimilation and Prediction System) and satellite data, and its application to the Goseong-Sokcho and Gangneung-Donghae wildfires in April 4, 2019. We made sure that the proposed WRI represented the change of wildfire risk of around March 19 and April 4 very well. Our approach can be a viable option for wildfire risk monitoring, and future works will be necessary for the utilization of GK-2A products and the coupling with the wildfire prediction model of the Korea Forest Service.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.6_3
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• pp.1285-1298
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• 2019

Drought is one of the factors that can cause wildfires. Drought is related to not only the occurrence of wildfires but also their frequency, extent and severity. In South Korea, most wildfires occur in dry seasons (i.e. spring and autumn), which are highly correlated to drought events. In this study, we examined the relationship between wildfire occurrence and drought factors, and developed satellite-based new drought indices for assessing wildfire risk over South Korea. Drought factors used in this study were high-resolution downscaled soil moisture, Normalized Different Water Index (NDWI), Normalized Multi-band Drought Index (NMDI), Normalized Different Drought Index (NDDI), Temperature Condition Index (TCI), Precipitation Condition Index (PCI) and Vegetation Condition Index (VCI). Drought indices were then proposed through weighted linear combination and one-class support vector machine (One-class SVM) using the drought factors. We found that most drought factors, in particular, soil moisture, NDWI, and PCI were linked well to wildfire occurrence. The validation results using wildfire cases in 2018 showed that all five linear combinations produced consistently good performance (> 88% in occurrence match). In particular, the combination of soil moisture and NDWI, and the combination of soil moisture, NDWI, and precipitation were found to be appropriate for representing wildfire risk.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.33-45
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• 2019

Compound disaster is the type that increases the impact affected by two or more hazard events, and attention to compound disaster and multi-hazards risk is growing due to potential damages which are difficult to predict. The objective of this study is to analyze the possible impacts of post-fire landslide scenario quantitatively by using TRIGRS (Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Analysis), a physics-based landslide model. In the case of wildfire, soil organic material and density are altered, and saturated hydraulic conductivity decrease because of soil exposed to high temperature. We have included the change of soil saturated hydraulic conductivity into the TRIGRS model through literature review. For a case study, we selected the area of $8km^2$ in Pyeongchang County. The landslide modeling process was calibrated before simulate the post-wildfire impact based on landslide inventory data to reduce uncertainty. As a result, the mean of the total factor of safety values in the case of landslide was 2.641 when rainfall duration is 1 hour with rainfall intensity of 100mm per day, while the mean value for the case of post-wildfire landslide was lower to 2.579, showing potential landslide occurrence areas appear more quickly in the compound disaster scenario. This study can be used to prevent potential losses caused by the compound disaster such as post-wildfire debris flow or landslides.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.173-185
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• 2013

In order to clarify the impact of wildfire and its thermal forcing on atmospheric wind and temperature patterns, several numerical experiments were carried out using three dimensional atmospheric dynamic model WRF with wildfire parametrization module SFIRE. Since wind can accelerate fire spread speed, the moving speed of fireline is faster than its initial values, and the fireline tends to move the northeast, because of the wind direction and absolute vorticity conservation law associated with driving force induced by terrain. In comparison with non-fire case, the hydraulic jump that often occurs over downwind side of mountain became weak due to huge heat flux originated by surface wildfire and wind pattern over downwind side of mountain tends to vary asymmetrically with time passing. Therefore temporal variation of wind pattern should be catched to prevent the risk of widfire.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.21-32
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• 2007

Fire fuel map is one of the most critical factors for planning and managing the fire hazard and risk. However, fuel mapping is extremely difficult because fuel properties vary at spatial scales, change depending on the seasonal situations and are affected by the surrounding environment. Remote sensing has potential to reduce the uncertainty in mapping fuels and offers the best approach for improving our abilities. Especially, Hyperspectral sensor have a great potential for mapping vegetation properties because of their high spectral resolution. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the potential of mapping fuel properties using Hyperion hyperspectral remote sensing data acquired in April, 2002. Fuel properties are divided into four broad categories: 1) fuel moisture, 2) fuel green live biomass, 3) fuel condition and 4) fuel types. Fuel moisture and fuel green biomass were assessed using canopy moisture, derived from the expression of liquid water in the reflectance spectrum of plants. Fuel condition was assessed using endmember fractions from spectral mixture analysis (SMA). Fuel types were classified by fuel models based on the results of SMA. Although Hyperion imagery included a lot of sensor noise and poor performance in liquid water band, the overall results showed that Hyperion imagery have good potential for wildfire fuel mapping.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.345-352
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• 2020

Forest fires generate many types of risk as well as a wide and varied range of damage. Various studies and systems have emerged in response to wildfire disasters. International wildfire disaster safety management systems apply advanced technologies such as utilizing big data, GIS-based systems, and decision-making systems. This study analyzes South Korea's and other countries' forest fire disaster safety management systems, and suggests alternatives for wildfire disaster safety management in Korea. First, a means of integrating information, including field information, obtained by domestic agencies is proposed. Second, a method of applying big data to the disaster response system is proposed. Third, a decision-making system is applied to an existing GIS-based system. When applying the above countermeasures to Korea's existing disaster safety management system, various information and data can be visualized and thus more easily identified, leading to more effective decision-making and reduced fire damage.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.107-115
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• 2024

This study assesses forest fire susceptibility in Gangwon-do, South Korea, which hosts the largest forested area in the nation and constitutes ~21% of the country's forested land. With 81% of its terrain forested, Gangwon-do is particularly susceptible to wildfires, as evidenced by the fact that seven out of the ten most extensive wildfires in Korea have occurred in this region, with significant ecological and economic implications. Here, we analyze 480 historical wildfire occurrences in Gangwon-do between 2003 and 2019 using 17 predictor variables of wildfire occurrence. We utilized three machine learning algorithms—random forest, logistic regression, and support vector machine—to construct wildfire susceptibility prediction models and identify the best-performing model for Gangwon-do. Forest and soil map data were integrated as important indicators of wildfire susceptibility and enhanced the precision of the three models in identifying areas at high risk of wildfires. Of the three models examined, the random forest model showed the best predictive performance, with an area-under-the-curve value of 0.936. The findings of this study, especially the maps generated by the models, are expected to offer important guidance to local governments in formulating effective management and conservation strategies. These strategies aim to ensure the sustainable preservation of forest resources and to enhance the well-being of communities situated in areas adjacent to forests. Furthermore, the outcomes of this study are anticipated to contribute to the safeguarding of forest resources and biodiversity and to the development of comprehensive plans for forest resource protection, biodiversity conservation, and environmental management.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.5_2
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• pp.785-798
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• 2023

Recently, forest fires have become frequent due to climate change, and the size of forest fires is also increasing. Forest fires in Korea continue to cause more than 100 ha of forest fire damage every year. It was found that 90% of the large-scale wildfires that occurred in Gangwon-do over the past five years were concentrated in the east coast area. The east coast area has a climate vulnerable to forest fires such as dry air and intermediate wind, and forest conditions of coniferous forests. In this regard, studies related to various forest fire analysis, such as predicting the risk of forest fires and calculating the risk of forest fires, are being promoted. There are many studies related to risk analysis for forest areas in consideration of weather and forest-related factors, but studies that have conducted risk analysis for forest-friendly areas are still insufficient. Management of forest adjacent areas is important for the protection of human life and property. Forest-adjacent houses and facilities are greatly threatened by forest fires. Therefore, in this study, a grid-based forest fire-related disaster risk map was created using factors affected by forest-neighboring areas using national branch numbers, and differences in risk ratings were compared for forest areas and areas adjacent to forests based on Gangneung forest fire cases.