• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.88 no.3
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• pp.352-363
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• 1999

It has been rare to obtain reliable information related to the size of forest land in North Korea. Several sources of forest statistics, ranging from the first map of forest distribution in Korean Peninsula produced in 1910 to official data reported by the North Korea Government in 1997, were gathered and analyzed to define the characteristics of forest cover changes over years. In addition, Landsat satellite data obtained from 1973 to 1993 were processed for the two study areas of the provinces of Pyungyang and Heasan, where the topography and land use pattern are significantly different each other. Using three sets of multitemporal Landsat imagery, land cover ma-ps were produced by computer classification. Although forest statistics reported before 1990 are somewhat inconsistent, they mere gradually decreasing over years. The estimates of 1991 satellite data and the recent statistics reported in 1998 shows very steep decline in forest lands as compared to the ones before 1990. The abrupt decrease of forest lands after 1990 was also found on the detailed analysis of Landsat data for the two study areas of Pyungyang and Heasan. The rapid decline of forest lands may have something to do with the poor economic situation of the country and the continuing natural disasters of severe flooding and drought. Unstocked forest, which was not classified into forest land, was a very distinct and pervasive land cover type that can be easily observed on satellite imagery. Since unstocked forest land in North Korea may be a critical factor for degrading environmental quality as well as for the continuing natural disasters, further analysis is necessary to define the exact extent and the physical characteristics of the cover type.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.157-172
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• 2002

This work aims to collect a biogeographic informations on the biota, alpine ecosystem, nature reserves, forest ecosystem of North Korea, and also to accumulate a basic data on the current situation and problem of the natural ecosystem of North Korea for the preparation of future cooperation and exchange between South and North Koreas. The obtained findings are as follow. First, North Korean biota contains 18,013 species, and consists of 6,710 plant species, including 3,860 species of vascular plants. Secondly, urgent investigation on the biogeographically important arctic-alpine and alpine plants and ecosystem, those are known to be endangered due to environmental change and global warming, is required. Thirdly, the conservations of diverse nature in North Korea are conducted by the introduction of various systems, such as nature preservation region, reserves for plant, animal and sea bird, and natural monuments. Fourthly, out of 9.5 million hectares of forest, one million hectares have already faced forest denudation, thus caused lots of damages for forest ecosystem. Sharp decline of North Korean forest land are due mainly to the expansion of terraced dry-field farming and deforestation. Recovery of denudated forest land should be approached by both South and North Korean sides to solve the problem of shortage of foods and restoration of natural ecosystem of North Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.159-166
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• 2011

The use of land cover was sharply changed during 1975~2007 in the Kyungan watershed $(561.12 km^2)$. The changes occurred over an area of more than $227.65 km^2$ during the overall period at changing rates of 1.04% per year for water area, 1.79% per year for residential area, 2.99% per year for bare area, 3.03% per year for wetland area, 3.04% per year for grass area, 0.87% per year for forest and 2.32% per year for agriculture area. Water, residential, bare and wetland areas increased, while grass, forest and agriculture areas decreased during the last 32 years. BOD concentrations of representative sites for each sub-watershed continuously increased until the early 2000s as residential area increased with the highest discharged load, but decreased after the mid 2000s except upper Kyungan watershed. Such decline appears to be associated with the planning of Total Maximum Daily Load management for Gwangju city and expansion of waste water treatment plant. It is necessary to control land use/cover changes of the upper watershed and to prepare appropriate watershed management system for improvement in river environment including water quality, stream flow and bio-diversity.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.176-184
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• 2020

Due to constant development and decline on Seoul areas the Seoul government is pushing various policies to regenerate declined Seoul areas. Theses various policies lead to land-use changes around numerous Seoul districts. This study aims to create prediction model which can foresee future land-use changes and while doing so, tried to derive various influential factors which leads to land-use changes. To do so, various open-data from national departments and Seoul government have been collected and implemented into random forest algorithm. The results showed promising accuracy and derived multiple influential factors which causes land-use changes around Seoul districts. The result of this study could further be implemented in policy makings for the public sectors, or could also be used as basis for studying gentrification problems happening in Seoul Area.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.99-112
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• 2021

This study was performed to predict spatial change of future forestland area in South Korea at regional level for supporting forest-related plans established by local governments. In the study, land use was classified to three types which are forestland, agricultural land, and urban and other lands. A logistic regression model was developed using transitional interaction between each land use type and topographical factors, land use restriction factors, socioeconomic indices, and development infrastructures. In this model, change probability from a target land use type to other land use types was estimated using raster dataset(30m×30m) for each variable. With priority order map based on the probability of land use change, the total annual amount of land use change was allocated to the cells in the order of the highest transition potential for the spatial analysis. In results, it was found that slope degree and slope standard value by the local government were the main factors affecting the probability of change from forestland to urban and other land. Also, forestland was more likely to change to urban and other land in the conditions of a more gentle slope, lower slope criterion allowed to developed, and higher land price and population density. Consequently, it was predicted that forestland area would decrease by 2027 due to the change from forestland to urban and others, especially in metropolitan and major cities, and that forestland area would increase between 2028 and 2050 in the most local provincial cities except Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, and Jeju Island due to locality extinction with decline in population. Thus, local government is required to set an adequate forestland use criterion for balanced development, reasonable use and conservation, and to establish the regional forest strategies and policies considering the future land use change trends.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.158-169
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• 2012

Sabah has experienced a rapid decline in the extent of forest cover. The precise impact of habitat loss on the conservation status of the plants of Sabah is uncertain. In this study we use the niche modelling algorithm MAXENT to construct preliminary, revised and final ecological niche models for Dipterocarpus lamellatus and Dipterocarpus ochraceus and combined these models with data on current land-use to derive conservation assessments for each species. Preliminary models were based on herbarium data alone. Ground surveys were conducted to evaluate the performance of these preliminary models, and a revised niche model was generated from the combined herbarium and ground survey data. The final model was obtained by constraining the predictions of the revised models by filters. The range overlap between the preliminary and revised models was 0.47 for D. lamellatus and 0.39 for D. ochraceus, suggesting poor agreement between them. There was substantial variation in estimates of habitat loss for D. ochraceus, among the preliminary, revised and constrained models, and this has the potential to lead to incorrect threat assessments. From these estimates of habitat loss, the historic distribution and estimates of population size we determine that both species should be classified as Critically Endangered under IUCN Red List guidelines. Our results suggest that ground-truthing of ecological niche models is essential, especially if the models are being used for conservation decision making.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.5_3
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• pp.835-854
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• 2017

Government regulations and policies are important means of restraining the indiscreet expansion of urban areas. According to the standards from those means, it is clear that the fluctuation of forest green proportion encroached by the increase of urban space is obvious. In this study, we interpreted the changes of urban areas as well as the green ones owing to the urban expansion by the decades from 1996, with focusing on the cities of Seoul and Daegu highly developed in South Korea. The purpose of this study is to analyze the spatial expansion and morphological characteristics of urban land cover using not only satellite imageries (1996, 2006, 2016). but also the urban expansion intensity index (UEII) and GUIDOS program. Ultimately, this study is to compare the changes in the rate of forests due to urban expansions annually analyzed based on areas of forest elevation, slope, and the area of single forest patch. In Seoul, the expansion begun from urban space to suburban areas was comparatively rapid, which led the forest fragmentation and the gradual decline of the single patch. However, when it comes to DEM (Digital elevation model) and slope above a certain standard, by the development regulations, there was little decrease in area by anthropogenic developments. The city of Daegu has increased at a slow speed since 1996 in urban and suburban areas, whereas green forests have greatly increased through green forest conservation campaigns. In this way, as to the government policies and regulations, the quantitative and morphological expansion of cities owing to development could be controlled and forest spaces could be preserved as well. Therefore, regulations and policies by the government should be appropriately utilized for sustainable cities.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.114-127
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• 2010

This study aimed at reviewing the case examples of environmental assessment of development projects within management zones, identifying problems and improvement opportunities and suggesting the direction of environmental assessment for management zones that are increasingly segmented Findings showed that first, the assessment of environment soundness in management zones must incorporate the national land environmental map and wide-area ecological axes established by the Ministry of Environment. Second, regarding development activities in management zones, rather than an issue of simply destroying natural environment in a development site itself during a development period, an issue of permanently isolating ecosystems from surrounding areas in a mid/long-term perspective and continually polluting water in mid-stream/upstream regions where sites are located must be considered. Third, in the case of development projects with vast areas, existing plant communities will be disturbed and the naturalness of vegetation will gradually decline due to foreign tree species introduced for landscape architecture. Therefore, creating buffer forests at forest boundaries and planting native tree species that are same as nearby tree species must be examined. Last but not least, when assessing the environmental soundness of management zones, it would be crucial to comprehensively review the environmental, social and locational features of management zones, including surrounding areas, and set the direction of environmental assessment accordingly.

• Journal of KIBIM
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.72-79
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• 2018

Rapid developments around the world have resulted in urban expansion, habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, and pollution problems, which are the main reasons for the decline in biological diversity. The United Nations warns that many animals and plants will die out in the near future if this continues. This study was performed to propose a map of eco-corridor suitability analysis of Korean water deer(Hydropotes Inermis) to enhance biodiversity in Chuncheon city. Eight factors affecting habitat suitability were elevation, aspect, slope, forest type, distance to the road, distance to the stream, land use and green connectivity. Previous study analysis on the mobility behaviour of the Korean water deer(Hydropotes Inermis) produced a habitat suitability map by determining the threshold and assigning a value between 0 and 1 depending on the habitat suitability using the fuzzy function. A method of analysis was proposed for a number of eco-corridor through comparative analysis of the data from the produced habitat suitability map and the road-kill point. The previous studies were focused on Backdudaegan region and national parks except for urban cities. The potential habitat map of Korean water deer could be helpful as a way to prevent habitat disconnection and increase species diversity in urban areas.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.43-60
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• 2019

Background: Tropical montane forests played an important role in the provision of ecosystem services. The intense degradation and deforestation for the need of agricultural land expansion result in a significant decline of forest cover. However, the expansion of agricultural land did not completely destruct natural forests. There remain forests inaccessible for agricultural and grazing purpose. Studies on these forests remained scant, motivating to investigate biomass and soil carbon stocks. Data of biomass and soils were collected in 80 quadrats ($400m^2$) systematically in 5 forests. Biomass and disturbance gradients were determined using allometric equation and disturbance index, respectively. The regression modeling is employed to explore the spatial distribution of carbon stock along disturbance and environmental gradients. Correlation analysis is also employed to identify the relation between site factors and carbon stocks. Results: The result revealed that a total of 1655 individuals with a diameter of ${\geq}5cm$, representing 38 species, were measured in 5 forests. The mean aboveground biomass carbon stocks (AGB CS) and soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks at 5 forests were $191.6{\pm}19.7$ and $149.32{\pm}6.8Mg\;C\;ha^{-1}$, respectively. The AGB CS exhibited significant (P < 0.05) positive correlation with SOC and total nitrogen (TN) stocks, reflecting that biomass seems to be a general predictor of SOCs. AGB CS between highly and least-disturbed forests was significantly different (P < 0.05). This disturbance level equates to a decrease in AGB CS of 36.8% in the highly disturbed compared with the least-disturbed forest. In all forests, dominant species sequestrated more than 58% of carbon. The AGB CS in response to elevation and disturbance index and SOC stocks in response to soil pH attained unimodal pattern. The stand structures, such as canopy cover and basal area, had significant positive relation with AGB CS. Conclusions: Study results confirmed that carbon stocks of studied forests were comparable to carbon stocks of protected forests. The biotic, edaphic, topographic, and disturbance factors played a significant variation in carbon stocks of forests. Further study should be conducted to quantify carbon stocks of herbaceous, litter, and soil microbes to account the role of the whole forest ecosystem.