• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.363-376
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• 2023

As the risk of biodiversity reduction and extinction becomes serious due to climate change and indiscriminate development, the importance of conservation of the natural environment and ecosystem is increasing. In this situation, Ireviewed that overseas cases of the ecological outlook and evaluation system aimed at providing information on natural resources and ecosystem change. As a results, other countries showed that various research institutes have been carrying on field surveys by classification group, but it was different from us that the investigated data are collected and managed in an integrated manner and repeatedly provided within a short period of time. In addition, it was analyzed that it was highly utilized in policy and environmental impact assessment by providing evaluation-based prediction and outlook information along with basic survey data. Based on this, the limitations of information use in our wildlife surveys and environmental impacts assessments were analyzed, and the estabilishment of a ecology outlook and evaluation system and policy support measures were considered. In addition, based on the proposed outlook and evaluation system preparation plan, a policy direction that can be effectively used in domestic natural ecosystem policies was proposed.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.271-279
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• 2009

Vinyl chloride (VC) is a known human carcinogen, and it is released to multi-environmental media via several exposure routes. VC was potentially evaluated as a water quality pollutant based on human health risk assessment in Korean water environments. In this study, we investigated physicochemical and toxicological properties of VC, human health and ecological risk assessment, and the regulation of VC as a water quality pollutant in developed countries. Currently there are no standard or guideline values of VC in Korean legal system for the protection of human health and aquatic ecosystem, except that it is designated as a specific toxic substance and a water quality pollutant. Human health risk assessment of VC was previously performed based on the limited water quality monitoring data. The monitoring level of VC in Korean water system is more higher than other countries'. VC was assessed as potential hazardous chemical based on the US EPA's cancer risk assessment. There were a few ecotoxicity data of VC available using very limited kinds of aquatic organisms, and the toxicity results obtained seem to be overestimated without considering the losses of VC in open exposure system. Therefore it is needed to monitor the VC in various areas and to carry out the ecotoxicity research using multi-level organisms. We expect that these results can be useful information for implementing VC as a water quality pollutant in legal system for the protection of human health and aquatic ecosystem in near future.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.135-159
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• 2014

Industrial insect is defined as the insect utilized in industries that creates added value. Most of the industrial insects used in Korea are exotic species that are introduced through artificial means. Despite the rapid expansion of market for industrial insects, the system for risk assessment of industrial insects is not being adequately conducted. Although Korea carries out a risk assessment for the species designated as disease and insect pest by Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency, far too little consideration is being given to overall ecosystem, as the control system is covered in the Plant Quarantine Law. To solve this problem, we analyzed the Korean risk assessment system and looked at systems in other countries. The results show that it is essential for stakeholders to reach an agreement to set up fundamental directions for the system. Unless the integration system of taxonomical and ecological information is prepared, the ecological risk assessment should be conservative to protect ecosystems and should also follow the precautionary principle. It also requires cooperation among the ministries. In addition, the results indicated that a differentiation between risk assessment and screening is urgent. Several solutions such as setting up clear objectives in both assessment and screening stages, target species, steering organization and assessment criteria assessment systems from were proposed as practical institutional strategies. Among many foreign countries the assessment system from Ireland equally considers various factors such as economical, ecological safety and management aspects, It is also based on precautionary principle to fulfil its original purpose. It was suggested that the Ireland system would be the best reference that can be modified and applied into the Korean system by considering distinct characteristics of the industrial insects.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.221-232
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• 2009

The geographical distribution of freeze risk determines the latitudinal and altitudinal limits and the maximum acreage suitable for fruit production. Any changes in its pattern can affect the policy for climate change adaptation in fruit industry. High-definition digital maps for such applications are not available yet due to uncertainty in the combined responses of temperature and dormancy depth under the future climate scenarios. We applied an empirical freeze risk index, which was derived from the combination of the dormancy depth and threshold temperature inducing freeze damage to dormant buds of 'Changhowon Hwangdo' peach trees, to the high-definition digital climate maps prepared for the current (1971-2000), the near future (2011-2040) and the far future (2071-2100) climate scenarios. According to the geospatial analysis at a landscape scale, both the safe and risky areas will be expanded in the future and some of the major peach cultivation areas may encounter difficulty in safe overwintering due to weakening cold tolerance resulting from insufficient chilling. Our test of this method for the two counties representing the major peach cultivation areas in South Korea demonstrated that the migration of risky areas could be detected at a sub-grid scale. The method presented in this study can contribute significantly to climate change adaptation planning in agriculture as a decision aids tool.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.26-36
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• 2020

This study aimed at investigating present research and knowledge-base on climate change adaptation in ecosystem sector and analyzed the current status of basic information on ecosystem that functions as evidence-base of climate change adaptation to deduce the suggestions for the future development for knowledge and information in biodiversity. In this perspective, a questionary survey titled as "the ecological knowledge-base and information needs for climate change adaptation" with the researchers who were engaged with adaptation studies for biodiversity in the ecosystem related-research institutes including national and 17 regional local governments-affiliated agencies in Korea. The results are as follows; current status of utilizing ecological information which supports climate change adaptation strategy, future needs for adaptation knowledge and ecological information, and activation of utilizing ecological information. The majority of respondents (90.7%) replied that the ecological information has high relevance when conducting research on climate change adaptation. However, only half of all respondents (53.2%) agreed with the real viability of current information to the adaptation research. Particularly, urgent priority for researchers was deduced as intensifying knowledge-base and constructing related information on 'ecosystem change from climate change (productivity, community structure, food chain, phenology, range distribution, and number of individuals) with the overall improvement of information contents and its quality. The respondents emphasized with the necessity of conducting field surveys of local ecosystem and constructing ecosystem inventories, advancing monitoring designs for climate change in ecosystem, and case studies for regional ecosystem changes with the guidance or guidelines for monitoring ecosystem change to enhance the quality of adaptation research and produce related information. In terms of activation for ecological information usage, national and local adaptation network should be working based on the integrated ecological platform necessary to support exchanges of knowledge and information and to expand ecosystem types in time and spatial dimension.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.261-270
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• 2009

To make measurable regulatory decisions of chemicals, it is necessary to consider their effect on the human health and ecosystem. In principle, this is based on relevant toxicity studies conducted by accepted guidelines. However, current regulatory programs in various countries confront challenges related to risk assessment of large numbers of chemicals within the restricted resources and time. Therefore there is a need for more efficient approach to limit the number of tests to be conducted. This promotes the development of powerful nontesting methods (e.g. (Q)SARs) and permits to use the predicted data for regulatory purpose. In this article, current status of non-testing methods in various chemical regulatory programs was reviewed in terms of their application and research activity on them. Finally, their usefulness associated with development of domestic regulatory program was suggested.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.242-249
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• 2023

The aquarium pet trade is a source of potentially invasive crayfish species, which can be subsequently intentionally or unintentionally introduced into new environments. There were 34 species of freshwater crayfish imported into Korea for ornamental purposes. Starting with 1 species in 2008, it shows a trend of continuous increase every year with the maximum of 25 species in 2020. The number of freshwater crayfish imported into Korea for ornamental purposes was 1,172,159, with an annual average of 78,144 being imported. The population also recorded a record high in 2017 with a 38% increase in population imports compared to the previous year. Among the 34 pet crayfish imported into Korea, four species classified as high-risk and managed in the US and Europe were American crayfish (Procambarus clarkii), Cherax quadricarinatus, Cherax cainii, and Cherax destructor. In addition to American crayfish (P. clarkii), 3 types of high-risk invasive crayfish are designated as legally managed species by conducting an ecological risk assessment, raising awareness among importers, retailers and consumers through awareness-raising education on freshwater crayfish, and measures for route management such as species identification and improvement of labeling methods are needed.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.441-450
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• 2014

In this study, we consider ability of self-purification for a rational water quality management. And we assess the risk of Alkyl Benzene Sulfonic acid sodium salt(ABS) of harmful ingredients in Anseong Cheon watershed using QUAL2E model. The observations and simulated results were fitted well for BOD and ABS, but even though the trend of DO concentration change was well represented, the error between observation and simulation values was existed. We assessed the Risk assessment by calculating Risk quotient(RQ) by Predicted Exposure Concentration(PEC) and Predicted No-Effect Concentration(PNEC). Results of the impact of ABS on the self-purification of the river were Anseongcheon[0.0003(Bressan), 0.06(Criteria of Ministry of environment)], Jinwicheon[0.0002(Bressan), 0.04(Criteria of Ministry of environment). And result of the impact of ABS on the Aquatic ecosystem of the river were Anseongcheon[0.0667(Bressan), 0.005(Criteria of Ministry of environment)], Jinwicheon[0.1(Bressan), 0.0075(Criteria of Ministry of environment). All of these results were smaller than the 1.0 which is the reference value suggested by Norification No.30 of the National Institute of Environment Research. So, ABS did not affect a self-purification and aquatic ecosystem of the river. The method suggested in the study is a simple one and can provide more information for harmful ingredients than criteria of Ministry of environment.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.59-71
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• 1993

Evaluation methods are employed in environmental impact assessment to choose between different project site, to determine the required measures to compensate impact and to decide whether the environmental impacts are more important than the social or economic effects of a project. The main obstacles that restrict use of quantitative evaluation method are a Lack of knowledge about the environmental effects (e.g. if impacts on wildlife or landscape amenities are predicted) and the relative importance of economic and social issues compared with nature conservation stability of ecosystem or landscape beauty. In Germany, the most common method for site planning is the "ecological risk analysis". It is a kind of multi-criteria-decision-method based on quantitative and qualitative description and ordinal ranking. The various kinds of "ecological balancing methods" that are more recently developed (within the last decade) to quantify the required amount for compensatory measures instead often use cardinal figures to express the value of ecosystems, the intensity of impacts, the need for additional measures to compensate for long recuperative periods when restoring ecosystems and so on. There are still only a view attempts to quantify decisions between environmental and socio-economic issues. Multicriteria-analysis as well as cost-benifit-analysis was used. Some new approaches which are still in a preliminary status are based on contingent valuation and on calculations for compensatory payments (instead of compensatory measures).

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.373-381
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• 2012

Antibiotics have been issued recently in water environments because of potential impacts on ecosystem and public health. This study was aimed to investigating the degradation of antibiotics such as tetracycline, lincomycin, sulfamethazine and cephradine using gamma ray irradiation. And the toxicity before and after irradiation on antibiotics was tested in order to examine the aquatic eco-risk assessment by aquatic organisms. In addition, comparing tests on toxicity for gamma ray and UV irradiated antibiotics was conducted. Four different antibiotics were prepared by concentration of 30 mg/L with demi-water respectively. The absorption dose of gamma ray was ranged from 0.2 to 2 kGy. The concentration of four antibiotics was gradually decreased corresponding to the increase of the absorption dose. A method for toxicity assessment using Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata was evaluated to the most acceptable compared with methods by Daphnia magna and Microtox$^{(R)}$ in terms of sensibility. It showed that the reduction of toxicity on antibiotics treated by gamma ray was superior comparing to the test results obtained from UV treatment. By-products from antibiotics treated by gamma ray were easily decomposed by microorganism and their toxicity was also evaluated to low.