• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2010

To understand day-to-day fluctuations in soil moisture content in Seoul, I simulated daily soil moisture content from 1908 to 2009 using long-term climatic precipitation and temperature data collected at the Surface Synoptic Meteorological Station in Seoul for the last 98 years with a hydrological simulation model, BROOK. The output data set from the BROOK model allowed me to examine day-to-day fluctuations and the severity and duration of droughts in the Seoul area. Although the soil moisture content is highly dependent on the occurrence of precipitation, the pattern of changes in daily soil moisture content was clearly quite different from that of precipitation. Generally, there were several phases in the dynamics of daily soil moisture content. The period from mid-May to late June can be categorized as the initial period of decreasing soil moisture content. With the initiation of the monsoon season in late June, soil moisture content sharply increases until mid-July. From the termination of the rainy season in mid-July, daily soil moisture content decreases again. Highly stochastic events of typhoons from late June to October bring large amount of rain to the Korean peninsula, culminating in late August, and increase the soil moisture content again from late August to early September. From early September until early October, another sharp decrease in soil moisture content was observed. The period from early October to mid-May of the next year can be categorized as a recharging period when soil moisture content shows an increasing trend. It is interesting to note that no statistically significant increase in mean annual soil moisture content in Seoul, Korea was observed over the last 98 years. By simulating daily soil moisture content, I was also able to reconstruct drought phenomena to understand the severity and duration of droughts in Seoul area. During the period from 1908 to 2009, droughts in the years 1913, 1979, 1939, and 2006 were categorized as 'severe' and those in 1988 and 1982 were categorized as 'extreme'. This information provides ecologists with further potential to interpret natural phenomenon, including tree growth and the decline of tree species in Korea.

• The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.57-68
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• 1997

Climatic change of the late-Quaternary period has been record-ed in the loess deposits of the central Great plains and the record of such change is extractable using a number of approaches and parameters. The stratigraphy of loess deposits which have been investigated on Fort Riley exhibits the same sequence of loess units and intercalated buried soils as is found elsewhere in the re-gion but adds detail unique to the reservation Upland late-Qua-ternary composite stratigraphy preserved on the reservation con-sists of the basal Sangamon soil of the Last interglacial(c. 120-110ka), Gilman Canyon Formation(c. >40 -20ka), Peoria loess(c. 20 -10ka) Brady soil(c. 11 -10ka) Bignell loess(c. 9-\ulcornerka). and mod-ern surface soil. Application of magnetic analyses has provided proxy data sets that represent a time series of climatically regulated pedogenesis/weathering and botanical composition. magetic data have yielded an impression of the variation in climate from Sangamon time to the late Holocene through a reconstruction of the history of pedogenesis/weathering. Sangamon soil formation dominated the reservation durin the Last interglacial as indicated by magnetic parameters. During Gil-man Canyon time loess influx was usually sufficiently slow as to permit pedogenesis which appears to have been at a maximum twice during that time. Warm season grasses were important dur-ing soil formation but diminished in importance during the peri-ods of more rapid loess fall which were cooler and perhaps wet-ter. Peoria loess fall a function of the deterioration of climate during the last Glacial Maximum thinly blanketed the reservation with thickest accumulations occurring to the north-west(Bala Cemetery site)proximal to the source region. Long-term surface stability did not apparently occur within Peoria time but short-term stability may be indicaed by the presence of thin weathering zones(incipient soils) in the Peoria loess. Re-gional landscape stability prevailed during the environmental shift at the Pleistocene/Holocene transition resulting in forma-tion of the well expressed Brady soil. One or more weak soils developed in the Bignell loess as it ac-cumulated. A notable feature of the Bignell loess is the appear-ance of the Altithermal dry period: the loess experienced little weathering and was dominated by warm season grasses until the latter of the Holocene.