• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.23 no.1 s.29
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• pp.98-105
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• 1990

In order to fine out the relationship between traffic accidents and atmospheric phenomena, we have analyzed 2,562 cases, one tenth of the total traffic accidents occurred in Taegu city for a year in 1988. The meteorological elements observed by Taegu Weather Bureau were used. It was divided into two largy categories : the patterns of accident as human injuries and destructions of car. When the accidents were overlapped in each other, it was considered as human injury. Human injuries were subdivided into three parts : death, severe wound and slight in, when more then two cases were overlapped, we choiced severe damage. The average number of daily traffic accidents including human injuries were lowest in winter of four seasons. The accident patterns in accordance with the seasons showed statistically significant difference. The frequency was the highest as 3.3 cases in an hour at $25.1-30.0^{\circ}C$ of atmospheric temperature, the rate of human injury showed the increase by the increased temperature. But there were not significant. Also it was the highest as 3.7 cases in less than 31% of humidity and the rate of human injury as the highest at 41-50%, but not significant. And it was the increasing tendency as wind speed increase, and the rate of human injury was the highest at 6.1-7.0 m/sec, but it was not significant. In relation to precipitation, and visibility, were the highest as 5.4 cases at 5.1-10.0 mm of rainfall, the rate of human injury was increased by the increased precipitation and showed statistically significant. And it was highest within 6 Km of visibility, but the rate of the human injury was the lowest within same distance, and also showed significance. The accidents were higher with snow on the road, but the rate of human injury was comparatively lower, but no significance.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.249-257
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper is to weigh the possibility of endangered Jang-hang wetland at the estuary of Han River to be included on the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance and come up with ways to manage the wetland depending on its biotope patterns. The target area is located between Gimpo bridge and Isanpo I.C. with about $2.7km^2$ area. Through the analysis of RIS(Information Sheet for Ramsar Wetlands), it was known that the wetland is located on the sedimentary topography and formed as a result of sediment at the estuary of the river owing to the concentration of rainfall during summer. The vegetation environment in the area is divided into brackish water and fresh water areas depending on salinity. Rhizosphere soil(RS) of the area was analyzed to be Silt loam while bottom RS to be Sand loam. The plant ecology was composed of 52 families 135 species and 11 varieties and 146 types. Among indigenous species found are Salix koreensis, Phragmites communis and Miscanthus sacchariflorus. The analyzed results of the actual vegetation showed that willow community accounts for 37% of the area and rice field is 13.5%. As for animal ecology, total of 62 species and 25,977 individual wild birds were observed. After comparing and analyzing the RIS we compiled with the Ramsar Site designation standards, it turns out that the Jang-hang wetland meets criteria 1(biographic region), criteria 2,3 and 4(species and ecological communities) and criteria 5 and 6(water birds). Thus, Jang-hang wetland is eligible for the Ramsar site. As a result of establishing and evaluating the biotope types for setting management areas, Jang-hang wetland has a total of 13 different types, and the grade I represents 75.4% of the area while the grade III 0.8% of the land status. We categorized four management zones for the wetland depending on the biotope patterns - preservation, restoration, use and buffer zones and suggested management methods for each zone.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.34 no.1 s.93
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• pp.1-8
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• 2001

During April 1993 to November 1994, cations, anions, and conductivity were analyzed to examine how summer monsoon influences the ionic content of Taechung Reservoir, Korea. Interannual variability of ionic content reflected hydrological characteristics between the two years(high-flood year in 1993 vs. draught year in 1994). Cations, anions and conductivity were lowest during peak inflow in 1993 and highest during a drought in 1994. Floods in 1993 markedly decreased total salinity as a result of reduced Ca$^{2+}$ and HCO$_{3}\;^{-}$ and produced extreme spatial heterogeneity (i.e., longitudinal, vertical, and horizontal variation) in ionic concentrations. The dominant process modifying the longitudinal (the headwaters-to-downlake) and vertical (top-to-bottom) patterns in salinity was an interflow current during the 1993 monsoon. The interflow water plunged near a 27${\sim}$37 km-location (from the dam) of the mid-lake and passed through the 10${\sim}$30m stratum of the reservoir, resulting in an isolation of epilimnetic high conductivity water (>100 ${\mu}$S/cm) from advected river water with low conductivity (65${\sim}$75 ${\mu}$S/cm), During postmonsoon 1993, the factors regulating salinity differed spatially; salinity of downlake markedly declined as a result of dilution through the mixing of lake water with river water, whereas in the headwaters it increased due to enhanced CaCO$_{3}$ (originated from limestone/metamorphic rock) of groundwaters entering the reservoir. This result suggests an importance of the basin geology on ion compositions with hydrological characteristics. In 1994, salinity was markedly greater (p<0.001) relative to 1993 and ionic dilution did not occur during the monsoon due to reduced inflow. Overall data suggest that the primary factor influencing seasonal ionic concentrations and compositions in this system is the dilution process depending on the intensity of monsoon rainfall.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.378-391
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• 2012

The objective of this study was to determine temporal patterns and longitudinal gradients of water chemistry at eight artificial reservoirs and ten streams within the Han-River watershed along the main axis of the headwaters to the downstreams during 2009~2010. Also, we evaluated chemical relations and their variations among major trophic variables such as total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), and chlorophyll-a (CHL-a) and determined intense summer monsoon and annual precipitation effects on algal growth using empirical regression model. Stream water quality of TN, TP, and other parameters degradated toward the downstreams, and especially was largely impacted by point-sources of wastewater disposal plants near Jungrang Stream. In contrast, summer river runoff and rainwater improved the stream water quality of TP, TN, and ionic contents, measured as conductivity (EC) in the downstream reach. Empirical linear regression models of log-transformed CHL-a against log-transformed TN, TP, and TN : TP mass ratios in five reservoirs indicated that the variation of TP accounted 33.8% ($R^2$=0.338, p<0.001, slope=0.710) in the variation of CHL and the variation of TN accounted only 21.4% ($R^2$=0.214, p<0.001) in the CHL-a. Overall, our study suggests that, primary productions, estimated as CHL-a, were more determined by ambient phosphorus loading rather than nitrogen in the lentic systems of artificial reservoirs, and the stream water quality as lotic ecosystems were more influenced by a point-source locations of tributary streams and intense seasonal rainfall rather than a presence of artificial dam reservoirs along the main axis of the watershed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.45-72
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• 2005

C. neoformans-associated cryptococcosis is primarily a disease of immunocompromised persons, has a world-wide distribution, and is often spread by pigeons in the urban environment. In contrast, C. gattii causes infection in normal hosts, has only been described in tropical and semi-tropical areas of the world, and has a unique niche in river gum Eucalyptus trees. Cryptococcosis is acquired through inhalation of the yeast propagules from the environment. C. gattii has been identified as the cause of an emerging infectious disease centered on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. No cases of C. gattii-disease were diagnosed prior to 1999; the current incidence rate is 36 cases per million population. A search was initiated in 2001 to find the ecological niche of this basidiomycetous yeast. C. gaftii was found in the environment in treed areas of Vancouver Island. The highest percentage of colonized-tree clusters were found around central Vancouver Island, with decreasing rates of colonization to the north and south. Climate, soil and vegetation cover of this area, called the Coastal Douglas fir biogeoclimatic zone, is unique to British Columbia and Canada. The concentration of airborne C. gattii was highest in the dry summer months, and lowest during late fall, winter, and early spring, months which have heavy rainfall. The study of the emerging colonization of this organism and subsequent cases of environmentally acquired disease will be informative in planning public health management of new routes of exposure to exotic agents in areas impacted by changing climate and land use patterns. Cryptococcosis is an infection associated with an encapsulated, basidiomycetous yeast Cryptococcus neoformans. The route of entry for this organism is through the lungs, with possible systemic spread via the circulatory system to the brain and meninges. There are four cryptococcal serogroups associated with disease in humans and animals, distinguished by capsular polysaccharide antigens. Cryptococcus neoformans: variety grubii (serotype A), variety neoformans (serotype D), and variety gattii (serotypes B and C) (Franzot et at. 1999). C. neoformans variety gattii has recently been elevated to species status, C. gattii. C. neoformans val. grubii and var. neoformans have a world-wide distribution, and are particularly associated with soil and weathered bird droppings. In contrast, C. gattii (CG) is not associated with bird excrement, is primarily found in tropical and subtropical climates, and has a restricted environmental niche associated with specific tree species. (Ellis & Pfiffer 1990) Ellis and Pfeiffer theorize that, as a basidiomycete, CG requires an association with a tree in order to become pathogenic to mammals. In Australia, CG has been found to be associated with five species of Eucalypts, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, E. tereticornis, E. blakelyi, E. gomphocephala, and E. rudis. Eucalypts, although originally native to Australia, now have a world-wide distribution. CG has been found associated with imported eucalypts in India, California, Brazil, and Egypt. In addition, in Brazil and Columbia, where eucalypts have been naturalized, native trees have been shown to harbour CG (Callejas et al. 1998; Montenegro et al. 2000). In British Columbia, Canada, since the beginning of 1999, there have been 120 confirmed cases of cryptococcal mycoses associated with CG in humans, including 4 fatalities (data from British Columbia Centre for Disease Control), and over 200 cases in animal pets in BC (data from Central Laboratory for Veterinarians). What is remarkable about the BC outbreak of C. gattii-cryptococcosis is that all of the cases have been residents of, or visitors to, a narrow area along the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, BC, from the tip of the island in the south (Victoria) to Courtenay on the north-central island as illustrated in Figure 1. Of the first 38 human cases, 58% were male with a mean age of 59.7 years (range 20 - 82): 36 cases (95%) were Caucasian. Ten cases (26%) presented with meningitis, the remainder presented with respiratory symptoms. Cultures recovered from cases of cryptococcosis associated with the outbreak were typed as serogroup B, which is specific to CG (Bartlett et al. 2003). This was the first reported outbreak of CVG in Canada, or indeed, the world. Where infection with CG is endemic, for example, Australia, the incidence of cryptococcosis ranges from 1.8 - 4.7 per million between the southern and northern states (Sorrell 2001). However, the overall incidence of cryptococcosis in immunocompenent individuals has been estimated at 0.2 per million population per year (Kwon-Chung et al. 1984). The population of Vancouver Island is approximately 720,000,consequently, even if the organism were endemic, one would expect a maximum of 0.15 cases of cryptococcal disease annually.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.72-78
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• 1981

On August 25, 1979 a heavy daily rainfall of 465 mm pured into Jinhae area by the influence of Typhoon Judy. In consequence of the typhoon, 38 persons were killed, houses and arable land were demolished and caused wide ranges of landslides in the area. According to the previous investigation, there had been five cases of such typhoons accompanied a daily precipitation over 300 mm for 27 years, however, there had not occurred any landslides before, even though it is reported that any typhoon accompanied by heavy daily rainfalls over 300 mm is normally known to cause various kinds of landslides. This phonomenon was described to the fact that there has been a qualitative change in the agents of landslides such as precipitation, geology, topography and forest. Thus, in this report, the relations of the agents to the development of landslides were to be analysed and brought forth the following confirmation: 1. In the district, 71 landslides of which area covered 15.3 ha were observed. 2. In terms of geology of the landslided sites. 89 and 11% in numbers were observed in the andesite and the granite respectively, and the areas of those landslide estimated 45 and 55% respectively. 3. In a topographical point of view, 44% of the numbers of landslides(55% in area basis) were occurred within the slopes of $26-35^{\circ}$, while no landslides were observed in either lower (below $9^{\circ}$) or upper (above $41^{\circ}$) slopes. In terms of slope patterns, 39 and 33% in numbers (52 and 46% on the basis of area) were observed in concave slopes and compound slopes respectively. 4. In terms of forest ages, the most landslides were observed in 5-15 year-old forest, of which averages were 2.19 landslides per 100 ha and 0.47 ha per 100 ha. However, no landslides were observed in the forest of over 26 years old. 5. Among the agents, precipitation, geology, topography are considered not to be controlled but the only agent, the forest, to be controlled by human beings. Thus, this firstly observed landslides at Jinhae District are conclusively considered as the result of qualitative changes of one agent, the forest, in the area.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.199-207
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• 2016

This study was conducted to develop a forest fire occurrence model using meteorological characteristics for practical forecasting of forest fire danger rate by reflecting the climate change for the time period of 2000yrs. Forest fire in South Korea is highly influenced by humidity, wind speed, temperature, and precipitation. To effectively forecast forest fire occurrence, we developed a forest fire danger rating model using weather factors associated with forest fire in 2000yrs. Forest fire occurrence patterns were investigated statistically to develop a forest fire danger rating index using times series weather data sets collected from 76 meteorological observation centers. The data sets were used for 11 years from 2000 to 2010. Development of the national forest fire occurrence probability model used a logistic regression analysis with forest fire occurrence data and meteorological variables. Nine probability models for individual nine provinces including Jeju Island have been developed. The results of the statistical analysis show that the logistic models (p<0.05) strongly depends on the effective and relative humidity, temperature, wind speed, and rainfall. The results of verification showed that the probability of randomly selected fires ranges from 0.687 to 0.981, which represent a relatively high accuracy of the developed model. These findings may be beneficial to the policy makers in South Korea for the prevention of forest fires.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.64-80
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• 2018

In Korea, citizens can only know general information about crime. Thus it is difficult to know how much they are exposed to crime. If the police can predict the crime risky area, it will be possible to cope with the crime efficiently even though insufficient police and enforcement resources. However, there is no prediction system in Korea and the related researches are very much poor. From these backgrounds, the final goal of this study is to develop an automated crime prediction system. However, for the first step, we build a big data set which consists of local real crime information and urban physical or non-physical data. Then, we developed a crime prediction model through machine learning method. Finally, we assumed several possible scenarios and calculated the probability of crime and visualized the results in a map so as to increase the people's understanding. Among the factors affecting the crime occurrence revealed in previous and case studies, data was processed in the form of a big data for machine learning: real crime information, weather information (temperature, rainfall, wind speed, humidity, sunshine, insolation, snowfall, cloud cover) and local information (average building coverage, average floor area ratio, average building height, number of buildings, average appraised land value, average area of residential building, average number of ground floor). Among the supervised machine learning algorithms, the decision tree model, the random forest model, and the SVM model, which are known to be powerful and accurate in various fields were utilized to construct crime prevention model. As a result, decision tree model with the lowest RMSE was selected as an optimal prediction model. Based on this model, several scenarios were set for theft and violence cases which are the most frequent in the case city J, and the probability of crime was estimated by $250{\times}250m$ grid. As a result, we could find that the high crime risky area is occurring in three patterns in case city J. The probability of crime was divided into three classes and visualized in map by $250{\times}250m$ grid. Finally, we could develop a crime prediction model using machine learning algorithm and visualized the crime risky areas in a map which can recalculate the model and visualize the result simultaneously as time and urban conditions change.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.331-344
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• 2018

Lotic organisms in streams are affected by natural and anthropogenic disturbances such as increase of heavy rainfall event caused by climate change and flow regime change caused by weir constructions. Based on domestic and foreign literature, 157 Korean benthic macroinvertebrate taxa were selected species as potential lotic candidates. Three shoreline sites (total 54 samples) were surveyed consecutively before ('08~'09), during ('10~'12) and after ('13~'16) the construction of the weirs (Gangcheon, Yeoju and Ipo weir) in the Namhan-River for tracing changes of lotic communities. As a result, water flow of the Ipo-wier and water quality variables such as T-N, T-P, BOD5, etc. of the weir section revealed no significant changes. Physical habitat conditions such as the flow velocity and streambed substrate evidently changed. Particulary, flow velocity measured at sampling points along with each microhabitat drastically decreased and particle size of streambed substrate steadily decreased after weir constructions. Lotic organisms also decreased after construction, especially Hydropsychidae (insecta: Trichoptera) acutely decreased from $3,526ind.\;m^{-2}$ to $2ind.\;m^{-2}$ As a result of CCA, lotic species such as Hydropsyche valvata, Hydropsyche kozhantschikovi, Cheumatopsyche brevilineata, Cheumatopsyche KUa, Macrostemum radiatum, etc. correlated with the flow velocity, streambed substrate. Therefore, the decrease of the flow velocity and substrate size after weir construction seemed to be closely related to the decrease of the individual abundances of the lotic organisms independently of water quality. In order to evaluate the influence of the ecosystem on the flow regime change more accurately, it is necessary to study the indicator species based on the resistance or preference of the flow.