• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.83 no.4
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• pp.545-555
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• 1994

The objective of the study was to provide the useful scientific data on the early rehabilitation of the legging road after timber harvesting in the forest area. This study was carried out at logging roads which were constructed during 1989 and 1994 in Mt. Baekwoon. The field survey was conducted in July, 1991. Judging from the analysis of soil bulk density, time required for recovery as the undisturbed forest soil condition was more than 10 years in the road which was left, and the regression equation is as follows, $$Y_1=1.4195-0.0744{\cdot}X(R^2=0.91)$$ $$Y_2=1.4673-0.0688{\cdot}X(R^2=0.73)$$ (X : elapsed year after road construction. $Y_1$, $Y_2$ : soil bulk density($g/cm^3$) at 0~7.5cm, and 7.5~15.0cm, respectively) Especially soil bulk density with buffer strip-woods was $0.890-0.903g/cm^3$, so it was 20% lower than that of logging road surface without buffer strip-woods. Among the 7 factors, location, sand content, and soil hardness had statistically significant effect on the soil bulk density in logging road surface. The pioneer species on logging road surface were Rhus cratargifolius, Prunus chinensis, and Lespedeza cyrtobotrya, etc. in woody species, and Pteridium aquilinum, Arundinella hirta, and Lysimachia clethroides, etc. in herb species. So, in process of year, average plant coverage were 70% on cutting and banking slope and 20% on logging road surface which elapsed 6 years after logging road construction. Through this research, buffer strip-woods must be remained for environmental conservation of forest conditions, and from the time to be closed the road, planting, seeding, and grazing works could be effective to the soil condition and vegetation recovery.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1-14
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• 2013

A species restoration plan requires a process where the first is to thoroughly study the target species, second is to provide them with an onsite reproduction and adaptation period, and finally, third is to release them to their natural habitat. This study focuses on the space planning for target species' successful onsite reproduction and adaptation. For the study, a site planning near Sobaeksan National Park was implemented with Red Fox's behavior and habitat characteristics in mind for its recovery, reproduction, and natural adaptation. During site selection and planning, the basic aim was to incorporate the existing site as much as possible thus reducing the impact on the environment from the recovery plan. In addition, for a stable recovery of the Red Fox population, the site was classified into three different areas : core area, buffer zone, and transition area. Then, the facilities that help Red Fox's reproduction and adaptation such as reproduction center, foraging site, adaptation training center were planned. Under the condition that the site will be off limit to the public, a limited number of paths for monitoring was provided. For the site's vegetation, the existing species were planted as much as possible with the addition of plants that the Red Fox consume. The facilities included as Red Fox's habitat were fox burrows for hiding and ecological ponds for drinking. From this study, the recovery of the endangered fox species is expected as well as the contribution to an effort to increase of awareness toward the biological resources in Korea through Nagoya protocol. Furthermore, it has the potential to change the public's attitude toward endangered species recovery projects through publicizing and providing experience to the national park visitors.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.161-169
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• 2000

In this study, the temporal changes in the chemical characteristics of soil in a reclaimed coastal area, the Shihwa Industrial Complex in the West Coast in Kyung-Gi Province, and the correlations between chemical components were investigated to provide useful information needed for introducing vegetation in the area. The sites were filled with mountain forest soils from 1987 to 1996, and developed into various landuses such as neighbourhood parks, children's parks, buffer greens, pedestrian roads and others. The correlation analyses shoed that pH, organic matter(OM) and available P205 had not been closely related to other chemical parameters such as various cations electro-conductivity(EC) and cation exchange capacity(CEC): especially, pH showed a very low correlation with other factors. The EC turned out to have positive relationships with cations, especially with Na+ ions. There seemed to be fairly good correlations between cations except Ca++ ion. The relation between cations and OM was inconclusive possible because the OM contents in the soils were too low for the analysis. The OM seemed to increase slowly with time and the EC decreased slowly. The salinity and CEC in the original soils decreased rapidly possibly because of leaching. It is believed that there were some external disturbances such as rainfall which had affected the soil properties. The soils sampled in dry season showed a very high salinity. From this it is possible to assume that the rainfall would affect the sol properties significantly. So it is necessary to continue further studies to investigate the impacts of external disturbances such as rainfall on vertical soil profile and temporal variations as well as to delineate correlations between parameters with external disturbances controlled.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.381-395
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• 2011

Present work aims to establish an integrated management system of environmental data base for nine typical wind holes or air holes in Korea. It basically deals with definition, geographical distribution, morphological pattern, physical characteristics and anthropogenic environments of wind hole to propose systematic preservation strategy of their periglacial landscape and flora, which are known to be sensitive to global warming. Wind hole, in which cool air blows out during the summer, but mild air comes out during the winter from a cave or hole, is frequently found on northwest- and north-facing slopes on the terminal point of steep talus, block field, and block stream, and can be categorized into three types, i.e., talus, cave and sink types. Environmental characteristics of nine wind holes are analyzed on the basis of their geology, landform, climate, soil, hydrology, vegetation, road, footpath, land-use, and management system, and relevant DB are prepared. Wind hole areas with unique landscape and ecological values need to be designated as a nature reserve, and zoning of core, buffer, and transitional zones are required for the multi-dimensional preservation of periglacial landscape and ecosystem. Phytogeographical values of glacial relict plants, including mountain cranberry(Vaccinium vitis-idaea) at its global southernmost limit at Bangnaeri wind hole, Hongchon County, Gangwon Province of Korea are discussed in detail as a floristic refugia in connection with climate change during the Pleistocene Epoch and potential in-situ and ex-situ preservation sites in the future.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.9
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• pp.735-741
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• 2022

Global warming affects forests and their ecology. Diversity in the forest is a buffer that reduces the damage due to global warming. Mixed forests are ecologically more valuable as versatile habitats and are effective in preventing landslides. In Korea, most forests were created by simple afforestation with trees of evergreen species. Typically, evergreen trees are shallow-rooted, and deciduous trees are deep-rooted. Mixed forest tree roots grip the soil effectively, which reduces the occurrence of landslides. Therefore, improving the distribution of tree types is essential to reduce damage due to global warming. For this improvement, the investigation of tree types of the forest is needed. However, determining the tree type distribution of forests that are spread over wide areas is labor-intensive and time-consuming. This study suggests effective methods for determining the distribution of tree types in a forest that is spread across a relatively wide area. Using normalized difference vegetation index and RGB images from unmanned aerial vehicles, each evergreen and deciduous tree, and grassland area can be distinguished. The distinguished image determines the distribution of tree type. This method is effective compared to directly determining the tree type distribution in the forest by the use of manpower. The data from these methods could be applied to plan a mixed forest or to prepare for future damage due to global warming.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.309-319
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• 2008

Roads are an indicator of anthropogenic activity causing ecosystem disturbances and often lead to habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, and habitat isolation. The Hallasan National Park(153.4$km^2$) on Jeju Island being distinguished for its unique geology, topography, and biota has also been designated as a core area of UNESCO Man and the Biosphere(MAB) Reserve. Although the high conservation value of this park has contributed to a rapid growth of tourists and road construction, landscape changes due to roads have not been examined yet. We used GIS systems to examine the fragmentation pattern caused by roads, in relation to its zonation, elevation, and vegetation. When a buffer was applied to roads(112m width for paved roads and 60m width for both legal and illegal trails), the park consisted of 100 fragments. The ten fragments generated after applying buffer to only paved roads and legal trails ranged from $0.002km^2$ to $38.2km^2$ with a mean of $14.2km^2$, and about 7% of both nature conservation zone and nature environment zone of the park were edge. Fragments in both east and west ends of the park and around the summit exhibited relatively high shape indices with means of 5.19(for 100 fragments) and 7.22(for 10 fragments). All five legal trails are connected to the pit crater of the mountain and vegetation changed from broadleaf forests and conifer forests to grasslands with elevation, consequently resulting in dramatic fragment size reduction in grasslands at high elevation, in particular above 1,400m, where endemic and alpine plants are abundant. These results show that in Hallasan National Park the risks of habitat deterioration and habitat loss due to fragmentation may be more severe in the nature conservation zone dominated by Baengnokdam than in the nature environment zone. Therefore, current road networks of the park appear to fall short of the goal of the national park for ecosystem conservation and protection. Considering that the entire Hallasan National Park also serves as a MAB core area, conservation efforts should focus, first of all, on park rezoning and road management to mitigate habitat fragmentation.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.52-68
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to establish the management area using assessment of the conservation value on forest wetland, Sandeul wetland in Mt. Jaeyak, Miryang-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea. The six assessment factors were selected through the review of previous researches and written evidences such as wetland vegetation, hydrological factor, soil factor, topographical factor, naturalness and risk. The assessment data were built on the basis of digital topographic maps, digital detailed soil maps, high resolution satellite images and field surveys of three times. According to the result of assessment of the conservation value and establishment the management area, the core area which has the highest conservation value was occupied by 1.9ha and the conservation area which conservation value is 2 grades was occupied by 33.7ha. The buffer area surrounded core area and conservation area was analyzed by 33.7ha. The transition area which conservation value is 4 grades showed by the widest area(151.2ha) and restoration area that is the ecological hazard area was occupied by 1.7ha. In conclusion, these results can provide methods and basic informations for conserving and managing wetlands because the management area was classified scientifically considering rational processes.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.436-445
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• 2020

The number of protected areas has been steadily increased in Korea to achieve Aichi Target 11, and there are studies on potential protected areas that required additional designation. However, there has been an insufficient assessment of the complementarity of protected areas to conserve biodiversity effectively. This study identified the potential habitat areas using the species distribution model for plant species from the 3rd National Ecosystem Survey and compared the plant species abundance in the existing protected area and the potential protected areas using the similarity indices, such as the Jaccard index, Sorenson index, and Bray-Curtis index. As a result, we found that the complementarity of the existing protected areas and most potential protected areas were low, leading to the preservation of similar plant species. Only the buffer zone for Korea National Arboretum had high complementarity and thus is important to conserve some species with the other protected areas. This study confirmed that it was necessary to select additional protected areas outside the existing or potential protected areas to protect plant species with a low inclusion ratio of potential habitats within the protected area. This study is significant because it identified the ecological representativeness of each protected area to examine if the individual protected area can conserve unique and various species and proposed a method of finding candidate areas for additional conservation spatially. The findings of this study can be a valuable reference for the qualitative improvement of protected areas through the complementarity assessments, including animals and the effectiveness assessment study of protected areas using the National Ecosystem Survey data in the future.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.543-553
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• 2013

In Korea, there have been many studies and progresses on various types of pilot scale or commercialized field scale Best Management Practices(BMP) during the last 10 years. Runoff characteristics of diffuse pollutants from different land uses are well identified and documented. However, for the coastal area connected directly with shoreline, runoff patterns and management schemes of non-point pollution were not fully studied. Recently, coastal area is emerging as a new development axis especially in west coast side of Korea such as Incheon city and Chungnam province, thus urbanized area rapidly increased but there are no buffer zones and BMP facilities to aim at preventing direct discharge of the first flush into coastal sea and beaches. In this study, parking area in Deacheon harbor, Boryeong City in Chungnam Province was selected and rainfall runoff was monitored for two year period in order to examine run-off features from which proper type of BMP suitable for coastal area is proposed. Coastal area usually has a low ground water level and consists of plain land, so that large scale BMP such as storm water retention pond and wetland requiring great excavation works is not best management plan. In addition, monitoring study shows that storm water from the paved parking area has a high salinity compared with those in storm water from the inland. High salinity is detrimental for the vegetation. Therefore, BMP employing least vegetative cover and also in terms of maintenance is a good option such as infiltration trench and porous pavement.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.311-316
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• 2015

This study defined and classified no-net-loss-of-greenness (NNLG) based on the law, and then assessed the NNLG index by metropolitan cities and provinces in Korea after estimating NNLG evaluation indicators for the introduction of NNLG for health improvement of urban ecosystems. The results are as follows. First, NNLG was the comprehensive meaning that was included in the greenbelt and park greenbelt and the green area which was defined by the Act on Urban Parks, Greenbelts, etc. and the National Land Planning and Utilization Act respectively. Second, NNLG was classified as a park greenbelt which was included urban parks and greenbelts such as buffer greenbelts, scenic greenbelts, and connecting greenbelts, green areas which was included in green conservation areas, green production areas, green natural areas, and green coverage which is included forests, grasslands, and wetlands that were occupied by vegetation such as trees, shrubs, and plants. Third, NNLG index by cities and provinces was assessed based on the estimation of NNLG evaluation indicators, which included parks and greenbelt areas per capita, green areas per capita, green coverage per capita, ratio of parks and greenbelts, ratio of green areas, and ratio of green coverage. As a result, Sejong city got the highest point of NNLG index and Seoul and Daegu got lowest points of NNLG index among metropolitan cities in Korea. Chungbuk got the highest point of NNLG index and Kyonggi and Jeju got lowest points of NNLG index among provinces in Korea.