A Study on the Vulnerability Assessment of Forest Vegetation using Regional Climate Model

지역기후모형을 이용한 산림식생의 취약성 평가에 관한 연구

This study's objects are to suggest effective forest community-level management measures by identifying the vulnerable forest vegetation communities types to climate change through a comparative analysis with present forest communities identified and delineated in the Actual Vegetation Map. The methods of this study are to classify the climatic life zones based on the correlative climate-vegetation relationship for each forest vegetation community, the Holdridge Bio-Climate Model was employed. This study confirms relationship between forest vegetation and environmental factors using Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis. Then, the future distribution of forest vegetation are predicted derived factors and present distribution of vegetation by utilizing the multinomial logit model. The vulnerability of forest to climate change was evaluated by identifying the forest community shifts slower than the average velocity of forest moving (VFM) for woody plants, which is assumed to be 0.25 kilometers per year. The major findings in this study are as follows : First, the result of correlative analysis shows that summer precipitation, mean temperature of the coldest month, elevation, soil organic matter contents, and soil acidity (pH) are highly influencing factors to the distribution of forest vegetation. Secondly, the result of the vulnerability assessment employing the assumed velocity of forest moving for woody plants (0.25kmjyear) shows that 54.82% of the forest turned out to be vulnerable to climate change. The sub-alpine vegetations in regions around Mount Jiri and Mount Seorak are predicted to shift the dominance toward Quercus mongolica and Pinus densiflora communities. In the identified vulnerable areas centering the southern and eastern coastal regions, about 8.27% of the Pinus densiflora communities is likely to shift to sub-tropical forest communities, and 3.38% of the Quercus mongolica communities is likely to shift toward Quercus acutissima communities. In the vulnerable areas scattered throughout the country, about 8.84% of the Quercus mongolica communities is likely to shift toward Pinus densiflora communities due to the effects of climate change. The study findings concluded that challenges associated with predicting the future climate using RCM and the assessment of the future vulnerabilities of forest vegetations to climate change are significant.