• Agribusiness and Information Management
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.27-39
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• 2019

Agricultural risks are exacerbated by a variety of factors ranging from climatevariability and change, frequent natural disasters, uncertainties in yields and prices, weakrural infrastructure, imperfect markets and lack of financial services including limited spanand design of risk mitigation instruments such as credit and insurance. Indian agriculture has little more than half (53%) of its area still rainfed and this makes it highly sensitive to vagaries of climate causing unstable output. Besides adverse climatic factors, there are man-made disasters such as fire, sale of spurious seeds, adulteration of pesticides and fertilizers etc., and all these severely affect farmers through loss in production and farm income, and are beyond the control of farmers. Hence, crop insurance' is considered to be the promising tool to insulate the farmers from risks faced by them and to sustain them in the agri-business. This paper critically evaluates the performance of recent crop insurance scheme viz., Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana (PMFBY) and its comparative performance with earlier agricultural insurance schemes implemented in the country. It is heartening that, the comparative performance of PMFBY with earlier schemes revealed that, the Government has definitely taken a leap forward in covering more number of farmers and bringing more area under crop insurance with the execution of this new scheme and on this front, it deserves the appreciation in fulfilling the objective for bringing more number of farmers under insurance cover. The use of mobile based technology, reduced number of Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) and smart CCEs, digitization of land record and linking them to farmers' account for faster assessment/settlement of claims are some of the steps that contributed for effective implementation of this new crop insurance scheme. However, inadequate claim payments, errors in loss/yield assessment, delayed claim payment, no direct linkage between insurance companies and farmers are the major shortcomings of this scheme. This calls for revamping the crop insurance program in India from time to time in tune with the dynamic changes in climatic factors on one hand and to provide a safety-net for farmers to mitigate losses arising from climatic shocks on the other. The future research avenues include: insuring the revenue of the farmer (Price × Yield) as in USA and more and more tenant farmers should be brought under insurance by doling out discounts for group coverage of farmers like in Philippines where 20 per cent discount in premium is given for a group of 5-10 farmers, 30 per cent for a group of 10-20 and 40 per cent for a group of >20 farmers.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.305-311
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• 2019

Recently, global climate change causes abnormal weather and disaster countermeasures do not provide sufficient defense and mitigation because they were established according to the historical climate condition. Repeated torrential rains, in particular, are causing damage even in the robust urban flood defense system. Therefore, in this study, the change of runoff considering the spatial distribution of rainfall and urban characteristics was analyzed. For rainfall concentrated in small catchment, rainfall in the watershed must be accurately measured. This study is based on the rainfall data observed with Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) and Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) provided by the Seoul Meteorological Administration. Effluent from the pumping station was estimated using the EPA-SWMM model and compared and analyzed. Catchments with rainwater pumping station are small with large portion of impermeable areas. Thus, when the ASOS data where is located from from the chatchment, runoff is often calculated using rainfall data that is different from rainfall in the catchment. In this study, the difference between rainfall data observed in the AWS near the catchment and ASOS away from the catchment was calculated. It was found that accurate rainfall should be used to operate rainwater pumping stations or forecast urban flooding floods. In addition, the results of this study may be helpful for estimating design rainfall and runoff calculation.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.288-295
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• 2018

Purpose: The paper aims to compare the effectiveness of the two types of transport demand management measures, namely pull measures and push measures. Method: Case studies of two metropolitan areas in the developing world assess the extent to which increases in fuel prices can contribute to reducing automobile use and increasing the public transport use and the potential of urban rail transit to cause mode shift from automobiles. Within the case studies, a stated response survey of current car users has been conducted for Cairo and an on-line survey of rail transit users in Algiers. Results: There was a major proportion of car drivers who intend to switch to public transport, depending on the range of fuel prices in Cairo and a considerable proportion of rail users who have switched from automobiles resulting in a measurable reduction in CO2 emissions in Algiers. Conclusion: Investments in urban rail can be highly effective where there are demands for better public transport, but this type of pull measures can be much more effective if combined with push measures which significantly raise driving costs.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.74-84
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• 2017

Soil erosion is often extreme in Korea due to high rainfall intensities and steep slopes, and climate change has also increased the risk of erosion. Despite its significane, erosion-induced soil organic carbon (SOC) emission and water resource loss are not well understood, along with the lack of an integrated surface soil erosion protection policy. Therefore, to design adequate protection policies, land users, scientists, engineers and decision makers need proper information about surface soil and watershed properties related to greenhouse gas emission potential and water conservation capability, respectively. Assuming the total soil erosion of $346Tg\;yr^{-1}$, soil organic matter (SOM) content of 2% (58% of SOM is SOC), and mineralization rate of 20% of the displaced carbon, erosion-induced carbon emission could reach $800Gg\;C\;yr^{-1}$. Also the available water capacity of the soil was estimated to be 15.8 billion tons, which was 14 times higher than the yearly water supply demand in Seoul, Korea. Therefore, in order to prevent of soil erosion, this study proposes a three-stage plan for surface soil erosion prevention: 1) classification of soil erosion risk and scoring of surface soil quality, 2) selection of priority areas for conservation and best management practices (BMP), and 3) application of BMP and post management.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.325-342
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• 2018

The Korea Emissions Trading Scheme ( K-ETS), which manages roughly 70% of the greenhouse gas emissions in South Korea, was initiated in 2015, after implementation of its 1st basic plan and the 1st allocation plan (2014) for the 1st phase (2015-2017). During the three and a half years since the launch of K-ETS, there have been critical policy change such as adjustment of the institutions involved, development and revision of the 2030 national GHG reduction roadmap, and change in the allocation plans. Moreover, lack of liquidity and fluctuation of carbon prices in the K-ETS market during this period has forced the Korean government to adjust the flexibility mechanism and auction permits of the market stability reserve. To evaluate the policy change in the K-ETS regarding conformance to its objectives, this study defines three objectives (Environmental Effectiveness, Cost Effectiveness and Economic Efficiency) and ten indicators. Evaluation of Environmental Effectiveness of K-ETS suggests that the national GHG reduction roadmap, coverage of GHG emitters and credibility of MRV positively affect GHG mitigation. However, there was a negative policy change implemented in 2017 that weakened the emission cap during the 1st phase. In terms of the Cost Effectiveness, the K-ETS policies related to market management and flexibility mechanism (e.g. banking, borrowing and offsets) were improved to deal with the liquidity shortage and permit price increase, which were caused by policy uncertainty and conservative behavior of firms during 2016-2018. Regarding Economic Efficiency, K-ETS expands benchmark?based allocation and began auction-based allocation; nevertheless, free allocation is being applied to sectors with high carbon leakage risk during the 2nd phase (2018-2020). As a result, it is worth evaluating the K-ETS policies that have been developed with respect to the three main objectives of ETS, considering the trial?and?error approach that has been followed since 2015. This study suggests that K-ETS policy should be modified to strengthen the emission cap, stabilize the market, expand auction-based allocation and build K-ETS specified funds during the 3rd phase (2021-2025).

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.175-189
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• 2011

In this research, we describe the methodology and the quantification about GHG reduction effects, expected by optimization of operation mode according to establishing additional heat storage system of Bundang Combined Cycle Power Plant. As an intermediate form of General Combined Cycle Power Plant and Heat supply only district heating plant, Bundang Combined Cycle Power Plant(and Ilsan, Anyang, Bucheon) is possible to satisfy demand for the electrical load and thermal load capacity at the same time through changes to the operation mode itself. Therefore, through the operating transition of high-efficiency mode that the condenser cooling water is recovered and supplied to district heat and cooling, establishing additional heat storage system have flexible supply ability at the power and heat market. In this research, We calculated using the operating performance for the last three years(2008~2010) and efficiency of each mode-specific values. As a result, GHG reduction effects were calculated as $97.95kg_{-}CO_2/Gcal$ per heat energy 1 Gcal supplied at the heat storage system and we expected emmision reduction effect about $13,500Ton_{-}CO_2/yr$.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.383-390
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• 2016

According to the "Framework Act on Low Carbon, Green Growth", publication of annual national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory report is mandatory. This annual GHG inventory report is used as basal data for GHG mitigation strategies. In the livestock sector, GHG emission trends from year 1990 to 2013 were estimated based on the 1996 IPCC guidelines with the Tier 1 methodology. GHG emissions from the livestock sector in 2013 were 9.9 million tons $CO_2-eq$., where emissions from enteric fermentation were 4.4 million tons $CO_2-eq$, increased by 47.4% over 1990 mainly due to the increase in non-dairy cattle population. On the other hand, GHG emissions from livestock manure in 2013 were 5.5 million tons $CO_2-eq$, increased by 75.5% over 1990 mainly due to the increase in non-dairy cattle, swine and poultry populations. Additional research is required to develop country-specific emission factors to estimate GHG emissions precisely from livestock in South Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.55-69
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• 2018

As disaster risk and climate change volatility increase, there are more efforts to adapt to disasters such as forest fires, floods, and landslides. Most of the research, however, is about influence of human activities on disaster and there is few research on disaster adaptation for species. Previous studies focusing on biodiversity in selecting conservation areas have not addressed threats of disaster in the habitats for species. The natural disasters sometimes play role of drivers of ecological successions in the long run, but they might cause serious problems for the conservation of vulnerable species which are endangered. The purpose of this study is to determine whether soil loss (SL) is effective in selecting habitat management areas for amphibians and reptiles. RUSLE model was used to calculate soil loss (SL) and the distribution of each species (SD) was computed with MaxEnt model to find out the biodiversity index. In order to select the habitat management area, we estimated the different results depending if value of soil loss was applied or not by using MARXAN, a conservation priority selection tool. With using MARXAN, conservation goals can be achieved according to the scenario objectives, and the study has been made to meet the minimum habitat area. Finally, the results are expressed in two; 1) the result of soil loss and biodiversity with MATRIX method and 2) the result of regional difference calculated with MARXAN conservation prioritization considering soil loss. The first result indicates that the area with high soil loss and low species diversity have lower conservation values and thus can be managed as natural disturbances. In the area where soil loss is high and species diversity is also high, it becomes where a disaster mitigation action should be taken for the species. According to the conservation priorities of the second result, higher effectiveness of conservation was obtained with fewer area when it considered SL in addition to SD, compared to when considered only biodiversity. When the SL was not taken into consideration, forest area with high distribution of species were important, but when SL considered, the agricultural area or downstream of the river were represented to be a major part of habitats. If more species data or disaster parameters other than soil loss are added as variables later, it could contribute as a reference material for decision-making to achieve various purposes.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.23-34
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• 2019

Global warming becomes a serious issue that poses subsidiary issues like a sea level rise or a capricious climate over the world. Because of severe heat-wave of the summer in Korea in 2016, a big attention has been focused on urban heat island since then. Not just about heat-wave itself, many researches have been concentrated on how to adapt in this trendy warming climate and weather in a small scope. A big part of existing studies is mitigating "Urban Heat Island effect" and that is because of huge impervious surface in urban area where highly populated areas do diverse activities. It is a serious problem that this thermal context has a high possibility causing mortality by heat vulnerability. However, there have been many articles of a green infrastructures' cooling impact in summer. This research pays attention to measure cooling effect of a street planting considering urban canyon and type of green infrastructures in neighborhood scale. This quantitative approach was proceeded by ENVI-met simulation with a spatial scope of a commercial block in Seoul, Korea. We found the dense double-row planting is more sensitive to change in temperature than that of the single-row. Among the double-row planting scenarios, shrubs which have narrow space between the plant and the land surface were found to store heat inside during the daytime and prevent emitting heat so as to have a higher temperature at night. The quantifying an amount of vegetated spaces' cooling effect research is expected to contribute to a study of the cost and benefit for the planting scenarios' assessment in the future.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.54 no.8
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• pp.567-576
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• 2021

Climate change threatens the security of domestic water resources in South Korea. To overcome the potential water shortage, various approaches are being studied by alterning the operation of dams or by integrated operation of multiple dams and reservoirs. However, most of the related researches were developed and applied for multi-purpose dams, and few studies were conducted for the hydropower dams. The main purpose of the hydropower dam is to generate electric energy; however, the potential water shortage due to prolonged droughts brings the idea to supply water from the hydropower dam in the basin. To that end, it is required to estimate the water supply ability of the hydropower dams. In this study, we proposed a methodology to classify the hydropower dam into a "storage-type" and "run-of-river type" dam. The proposed approach was demonstrated using the hydropower dams located in North-han River basin. The results of this study are expected to contribute for further analysis of the hydropower dams, such as evaluation of water supply capacity and drought mitigation purpose operation of the hydropower dams.