The Effects of Geological Features on Forest Devastation in Kyungpook Province Area

지질(地質)이 경북(慶北) 산림황폐(山林荒廢)에 미친 영향(影響)

Forest devastation in Korea was caused by several factors such as internal factors from geological features and external factors from artificial forest damages including fuel wood collection from forests, forest fires, shifting cultivations and so on. According to the reports of 1935, lots of forest devastation in Kyungpook province area occurred around the main and branch stream of Nakdong river. Main factors of occurring forest devastation in 1935 were investigated by the methods of forest devastation rate and the population density at the basin of Nakdong river. But based on our study, forest devastation mainly occurred in rock zones of granite and granite gneiss, next to Nakdong formation but scarcely occurred in Hayang formation. Clay of the weathered soils of granite and granite gneiss was lost by rainfall, but remaining coarse-sandy soils(or grits) have poored conditions in vegetation's growth, which are due to high level of water permeability, lack of water-holding capacity and dried conditions. Generally, pine forests are mainly growing up in these regions. It is supposed that forest devastation was accelerated due to long periods of natural regeneration and no ability of natural regeneration by sprout after frequent collections of fuel wood and cuttings from pine forest on those grit areas. These results indicated that the high rate of forest devastation occurred around the basin with the high resident population density, which was partly due to forest damages by fuel collection. Moreover, both geological features and number of residents had much influence on forest devastation. Forest devastation was positively correlated with those variables(r=+0.73).