• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.325-337
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to analyze the soil environment of urban neighborhood parks and to use them as basic data for evaluating the ecological functions of urban parks such as groundwater regeneration, flood control, microclimate regulation, adsorption and purification. The landscape design criteria were generally evaluated as advanced, and further monitoring and studies are needed to evaluate the various ecological functions. It is also necessary to improve the phosphoric acid and nitrogen contents, which tended to be low. In addition, continuous monitoring is needed to assess the proper soil environment according to the biological species, and to evaluate the ecological functions. The results of this study can be used to evaluate the groundwater recharge of urban parks. In particular, when the land of the neighboring park is used for various purposes, the level of access of the user may be increased. Therefore, factors that may adversely affect the user's health, such as heavy metals and organic matters, should be selected and selected as management criteria. In addition, follow-up studies considering fertilization standards suitable for trees and growth of introduced vegetation, etc. are needed urgently to improve the soil environment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.102-118
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to propose an ecological management plan by the comprehensive analysis of biotope structures on Namsan Urban Natural Park in Seoul. Classified by actual vegetation, structure of layer and vegetation damage, biotope structures were composed of forest area, compact management area, herb area, cultivated area and non-ecology(urban) area. Succession had seened to stop in the Native forest. Artifical forest was divided into two types. The first, upper layer, was too dense to accommodate lower layer plants, the other case was the appearance of Quercus spp. and the first stage plants of succession following the declination of the upper layer plants. The soil pH of Nam-san Urban Park was 4.21∼4.51, which meant the soil was becoming acid. As the result of acidity, leaching of available nutrition(K/sup +/, NH₄/sup +/, Ca/sup ++/ etc.) was immediately influenced by the natural ecosystem, influence of acid rain was disturbed to becoming organic matter which was use to plants. In the case of a biotope structure management plan, the urban area was prohibited to spread outside. Cultivated and herb area was regenerated to natural forest. In the forest area, the compact management area was maintained with its present condition, and then it is desirable to make a preservation area and to plant shrubs. Planted Pinus densiflora Community was needed to eliminate competitive species of canopy layer, and plant shrubs. Management of deciduous broad-leaved Comm. was maintained in its present conditionand it is desirable to raise the diversity of the understory and shrub layer. The management of the artifical forest seems to be suitable for Q. spp. community. The care of naturalized plants prevents the expansion and restores the structure of wild plants. The soil management was a marked restoration soil ecosystem in order to prevent soil acid and drying.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2005

Policies regarding to soil quality of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and Demark were analyzed to suggest Korean policy for improving soil quality concept and it's implementation. All countries met four criteria: I) Soil quality levels of contaminants are indebt to concept of contaminant risk to recipients (human and ecosystem); ii) Any soil quality value can't be a magic number to determine whether a site is contaminated or not. To determine risk of sites, risk assessment of the sites should be followed; iii) Concentrations of contaminants of sites are not always significantly certain to risk of human and ecosystem of the sites; and iv) Soil quality levels are adopted based on land uses and plans. Considering our rooms to improve policies and analysis of the other country reports on their legislations about soil quality levels, our policy implementation could be approached from these directions: i) Our concept for soil quality levels needs to develop in scientific and rational. ii) Soil quality levels and risk assessment should be implemented as determining tools of site contamination in parallel, and iii) Soil quality levels depending on land uses and plans should be developed in debt with rational and scientific concept of risk. Increasing efficacy of Korea policy regarding the soil quality levels would be in dept to applying concepts of SCL (Soil Contamination Level) and SRL (Soil Regulatory Level) developed, implementing soil quality levels and risk assessment of contaminated sites in conjunction, and classifying three distinctions of land uses based on sensitiveness of recipients (human and ecosystem) to contaminants in soil in this research.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.581-587
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• 2014

Sediment basin that is typical facility installed for development business to prevent soil erosion has low removal efficiency and therefore, it causes complaints from the residents and has a bad effect on ecosystem. Thus there is a limit to control soil erosion using the existing design methods of sediment basin, so the purposes of this study is providing suitable design factors for sediment basin with regarding soil characteristic of development areas and analysing sedimentation characteristic by inflow concentration changes. The results, for analyzing the sedimentation characteristic by soil concentrations within approximately 2,000 ~ 20,000 mg/L of initial SS concentration, indicated similar sedimentation trends for same soil in the supernatant regardless of initial concentrations. However, for different soil characteristic (percent finer), there are different results in sedimentation rate and concentrations of the supernatant. Thus it is recommended that sediment basin to prevent soil erosion during construction should be designed based on retention time derived from soil sedimentation experiments regardless of inlet concentration. In addition, installing the soil erosion prevention facility at the back to satisfy effluent water quality should be considered to minimize soil erosion effectively.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.81-89
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• 2020

In the forest ecosystems, litterfall is an important component of the nutrient cycle that regulates the accumulation of soil organic matter (SOM), the input and output of the nutrients, nutrient replenishment, biodiversity conservation, and other ecosystem functions. Therefore, a profound understanding of the major processes (litterfall production and its decomposition rate) in the cycle is vital for sustainable forest management (SFM). Despite these facts, there is still a limited knowledge in tropical forest ecosystems, and further researches are highly needed. This shortfall of research-based knowledge, especially in tropical forest ecosystems, may be a contributing factor to the lack of understanding of the role of plant litter in the forest ecosystem function for sustainable forest management, particularly in the tropical forest landscapes. Therefore, in this paper, I review the role of plant litter in tropical forest ecosystems with the aims of assessing the importance of plant litter in forest ecosystems for the biogeochemical cycle. Then, the major factors that affect the plant litter production and decomposition were identified, which could direct and contribute to future research. The small set of studies reviewed in this paper demonstrated the potential of plant litter to improve the biogeochemical cycle and nutrients in the forest ecosystems. However, further researches are needed particularly on the effect of species, forest structures, seasons, and climate factors on the plant litter production and decomposition in various types of forest ecosystems.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.243-253
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• 2005

In agricultural ecosystem, soils which play important roles of storage and cycling of substances become a crtitical social problem due to rapid increase of contaminants with respect to our health. Soil as productivity should be interpreted as soil quality, that is important criteria in maintaining sustainable agriculture for production of safe food. Therefore, it needs to set the criteria of soil quality by considering environmental factors including relevant parameters which are involved in soil quality soil health because soils are widely distributed and have various characteristics such as physical, chemical, and biological propevties. Therefore, it requires intensive investigation of evaluation methods and development of related parameters for environmentally sound agriculture and safe soil management.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.52 no.spc2
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• pp.777-789
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to evaluate changes in water quality and aquatic ecosystem health by additional dam release of stream maintenance flow from multipurpose dams in Han river basin ($34,148km^2$) using SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool). The period of additional release was spring (April to June) and autumn (August to October) to evaluate the changes with the data of aquatic ecosystem health survey. The amount of additional release was set proportional to the present dam release, and the maximum release amount was controlled not to exceed the officially notified stream maintenance flow from dam. The 10 percent to 50 percent additional releases showed that the stream water quality (T-N, $NH_4$, T-P, and $PO_4-P$) concentrations except $NO_3-N$ decreased in spring while increased in autumn period. Using the stream water quality results and applying with Random Forest algorithm, the grade of aquatic ecosystem health index (FAI, TDI, and BMI) was improved for both periods especially in the downstream of basin. This study showed that the additional release of stream maintenance flow was more effective in spring than autumn period for the improvement of water quality and aquatic ecosystem.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.319-327
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• 2014

Understanding and quantifying of carbon storage in ecosystem is very important factor for predicting change of global carbon cycle under the global climate change. We estimated total ecosystem carbon in Gyeryongsan National Park with naturally well preserved ecosystem in Korea. Vegetation of Gyeryongsan National Park was classified with mainly four communities with Quercus mongolica (1,743.5 ha, 38.0%), Quercus variabilis (1,174.0 ha, 25.6%), Quercus serrata (971.9 ha, 21.2%), Pinus densiflora (695.2 ha, 15.2%). Biomass and soil carbons were calculated from biomass allometric equations based on the DBH and carbon contents of soil and litter collected in quadrat in each community. The tree biomass carbon was in Quercus variabilis ($130.1tCha^{-1}$), Pinus densiflora ($111.1tCha^{-1}$), Quercus mongolica ($76.2tCha^{-1}$), Quercus serrata ($39.0tCha^{-1}$). Soil carbon storage was in Quercus mongolica ($159.7tCha^{-1}$), Quercus serrata ($121.0tCha^{-1}$), Pinus densiflora ($110.5tCha^{-1}$), Quercus variabilis ($90.8tCha^{-1}$). Ecosystem carbon storage was Pinus densiflora ($239.9tCha^{-1}$), Quercus mongolica ($235.9tCha^{-1}$), Quercus variabilis ($226.0tCha^{-1}$), Quercus serrata ($165.9tCha^{-1}$), total amount was $867.7tCha^{-1}$. The area of each vegetation carbon storage was Quercus mongolica ($411,200tCha^{-1}$), Quercus variabilis ($265,300tCha^{-1}$), Pinus densiflora ($166,800tCha^{-1}$), Quercus serrata ($161,200tCha^{-1}$) and the total ecosystem carbon amount estimated $1,045,400tCha^{-1}$ at Gyeryongsan National Park. Theses results indicate that different in naturally well preserved ecosystem.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.614-624
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to offer the raw data for establishing the plan of disaster prevention and the continuous conservation of soil ecosystem by grasping the potential soil loss and the danger of erosion using RUSLE method on whole districts in Gyeongju National Park, Korea. In the results of the average amount of soil erosion for the year, the average of all districts was 5.7 ton/ha in annual, and Namsan district was the highest in 7.6 ton/ha in annual and Seoak district was the lowest in 2.1 ton/ha in annual. The dangerous district due to the soil erosion was analyzed as under 1%, and Gumisan and Hwarange district was not serious. But Namsan district was higher than others, especially, there was intensive in all over Geumohbong. Therefore, to protect the all over Geumohbong, we will establish the valid of restoration and management. The types of land cover in Gyeongju National Park mostly showed forest, and as the average amount of soil erosion in forest was 3.7 ton/ha in annual, there was good condition. In the results of the amount of soil erosion due to landform, the deep canyon showed as 7.3 ton/ha in annual per unit area, secondly, the U-shaped valley was analyzed as 6.1 ton/ha in annual. The plain and high ridge were predicted that there occurred the small amount of soil erosion. In future, if we will analyze the amount of soil erosion in Korean National Parks, we will offer the help to establishing the plan of conservation and restoration on soil ecosystem in whole National Parks.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.237-247
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• 2023

Paddy fields not only provide a variety of ecosystem services but also serve as crucial habitats for biodiversity conservation. Recently, their ecological value and significance have been increasingly emphasized. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the characteristics of soil seed banks and analyze their correlation with soil environmental factors in Conventional Paddy field (CP) and Organic Paddy field (OP) with different farming practices. Our results revealed that the vegetation in CP was simple, resulting in low plant diversity in the soil seed banks. On the other hand, the vegetation in OP was relatively diverse, leading to higher plant diversity in the soil seed banks. Additionally, distinct differences in soil environmental characteristics were observed between OP (K, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Mn, B↓) and CP (K, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Mn, B↑). These results suggest that variations in agricultural practices for rice cultivation have influenced the structure and diversity of vegetation and soil seed banks. Furthermore, these agricultural practices have had both direct and indirect effects on soil environmental factors. Our findings can serve as fundamental data for evaluating biodiversity conservation in agricultural ecosystems, ecosystem restoration, and ecological value assessment.