Deforestation Patterns Analysis of the Baekdudaegan Mountain Range

백두대간지역의 산림훼손경향 분석

The Baekdudaegan Mountain Range is a backbone of the Korean Peninsula which carries special spiritual and sentimental signatures for Koreans as well as significant ecological values for diverse organisms. However, in spite of importance of this region, the forests of Baekdudaegan have been damaged in a variety of human activities by being used as highland vegetable grower, lumber region, grass land, and bare land, and are still undergoing destruction. The existing researches had determined the details of the damage through on-site and recent observations. Such methods cannot provide quantitative and integrated analysis therefore could not be utilized as objective data for the ecological conservation of Baekdudaegan forests. The goal of this study is to quantitatively analyze the forest damage in the Baekdudaegan preservation region through land cover categorization and change detection techniques by using satellite images, which are 1980s, and 1990s Landsat TM, and 2000s Landsat ETM+. The analysis was executed by detecting land cover changed areas from forest to others and analyzing changed areas' spatial patterns. Through the change detection analysis based on land cover classification, we found out that the deforested areas were approximately three times larger after the 1990s than from the 1980s to the 1990s. These areas were related to various topographical and spatial elements, altitude, slope, the distance form road, and water system, etc. This study has the significance as quantitative and integrated analysis about the Baekdudaegan preservation region since 1980s. These results could actually be utilized as basic data for forest conservation policies and the management of the Baekdudaegan preservation region.