• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.341-356
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• 2019

In this study, the impacts of local meteorology caused by tidal changes in the West Sea on ozone distributions in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) were analyzed using a meteorological model (WRF) and an air quality (CMAQ) model. This study was carried out during the day (1200-1800 LST) between August 3 and 9, 2016. The total area of tidal flats along with the tidal changes was calculated to be approximately $912km^2$, based on data provided by the Environmental Geographic Information Service (EGIS) and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF). Modeling was carried out based on three experiments, and the land cover of the tidal flats for each experiment was designed using the coastal wetlands, water bodies (i.e., high tide), and the barren or sparsely vegetated areas (i.e., low tide). The land cover parameters of the coastal wetlands used in this study were improved in the herbaceous wetland of the WRF using updated albedo, roughness length, and soil heat capacity. The results showed that the land cover variation during high tide caused a decrease in temperature (maximum $4.5^{\circ}C$) and planetary boundary layer (PBL) height (maximum 1200 m), and an increase in humidity (maximum 25%) and wind speed (maximum $1.5ms^{-1}$). These meteorological changes increased the ozone concentration (about 5.0 ppb) in the coastal areas including the tidal flats. The increase in the ozone concentration during high tide may be caused by a weak diffusion to the upper layer due to a decrease in the PBL height. The changes in the meteorological variables and ozone concentration during low tide were lesser than those occurring during high tide. This study suggests that the meteorological variations caused by tidal changes have a meaningful effect on the ozone concentration in the SMA.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.483-489
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• 2019

True color images display colors similar to natural colors. This has the advantage that it is possible to monitor rapidly the complex earth atmosphere phenomenon and the change of the surface type. Currently, various organizations are producing true color images. In Korea, it is necessary to produce true color images by replacing generations with next generation weather satellites. Therefore, in this study, visual enhancement for true color image production was performed using Top of Atmosphere (TOA) data of Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) sensor mounted on Himawari-8 satellite. In order to improve the visualization, we performed two methods of Nonlinear enhancement and Histogram equalization. As a result, Histogram equalization showed a strong bluish image in the region over $70^{\circ}$ Solar Zenith Angle (SZA) compared to the Nonlinear enhancement and nonlinear enhancement technique showed a reddish vegetation area.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.205-215
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• 2022

Amidst the global climate crisis, dam operation policies formulated under the stationary climate assumption could lead to unsatisfactory water management. In this work, we assessed status-quo performance of the Yongdam Dam in Korea under various climatic stresses in flood risk reduction and water supply reliability for 2021-2040. To this end, we employed a decision-centric framework equipped with a stochastic weather generator, a conceptual streamflow model, and a machine-learning reservoir operation rule. By imposing 294 climate perturbations to dam release simulations, we found that the current operation rule of the Yongdam dam could redundantly secure water storage, while inefficiently enhancing the supply reliability. On the other hand, flood risks were likely to increase substantially due to rising mean and variability of daily precipitation. Here, we argue that the current operation rules of the Yongdam Dam seem to be overly focused on securing water storage, and thus need to be adjusted to efficiently improve supply reliability and reduce flood risks in downstream areas.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.644-658
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• 2021

Understanding the functional traits of dominant species in urban ecosystems provides insight into species' trait adaptation and ecosystem function in response to fragmented and isolated urban vegetation and reduced biological interactions. This study compared means and variances of environmental factors (geographic, meteorological, and soil attributes) and 4 leaf traits (leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf dry mass content, and leaf shape index) and 7 reproductive traits (fruit width, fruit length, fruit shape, fruit dry weight, fruit dry matter content, seed weight, and seed ratio) measured of 40 Sorbus alnifolia individuals in four mountainous areas south of Seoul downtown, South Korea. We then performed the multivariate analysis of trait combinations. While the measured environmental factors indicated the individuality of the survey sites, the urban vegetation was drier and had a longer growth period. The leaves of S. alnifolia in the urban areas were smaller and heavier, and the fruits produced longer and lighter seeds, showing the traits affected by long urbanization. The study confirmed changes in the growth and reproduction mechanism of the S. alnifolia population under the urban environment, indicating reduced biological interaction due to vegetation fragmentation and isolation. This study provides limited but distinct ecological information about the function and persistence of key species in cities with a reduced scale of biological interactions and many negative environmental factors such as air pollution.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.659-668
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to propose a ventilation corridor management plan to improve the thermal environment for Busan Metropolitan City. To this end, the characteristics of hot and cool spots in Busan were identified by conducting spatial statistical analysis, and thermal image data from Landsat-7 satellites and major ventilation corridors were analyzed through WRF meteorological simulation. The results showed the areas requiring thermal environment improvement among hot spot areas were Busanjin-gu, Dongnae-gu, industrial areas in Yeonje-gu and Sasang-gu, and Busan Port piers in large-scale facilities. The main ventilation corridor was identified as Geumjeongsan Mountain-Baekyangsan Mountain-Gudeoksan Mountain Valley. Based on the results, the ventilation corridor management strategy is suggested as follows. Industrial facilities and the Busan Port area are factors that increase the air temperature and worsen the thermal environment of the surrounding area. Therefore, urban and architectural plans are required to reduce the facility's temperature and consider the ventilation corridor. Areas requiring ventilation corridor management were Mandeok-dong and Sajik-dong, and they should be managed to prevent further damage to the forests. Since large-scale, high-rise apartment complexes in areas adjacent to forests interfere with the flow of cold and fresh air generated by forests, the construction of high-rise apartment complexes near Geumjeongsan Mountain with the new redevelopment of Type 3 general residential area should be avoided. It is expected that the results of this study can be used as basic data for urban planning and environmental planning in response to climate change in Busan Metropolitan City.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.6_1
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• pp.1191-1205
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• 2022

Particulate matter(PM) among air pollutants with complex and widespread causes is classified according to particle size. Among them, PM_2.5 is very small in size and can cause diseases in the human respiratory tract or cardiovascular system if inhaled by humans. In order to prepare for these risks, state-centered management and preventable monitoring and forecasting are important. This study tried to predict PM_2.5 in Seoul, where high concentrations of fine dust occur frequently, using two ensemble models, random forest (RF) and extreme gradient boosting (XGB) using 15 local data assimilation and prediction system (LDAPS) weather-related factors, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and 4 chemical factors as independent variables. Performance evaluation and factor importance evaluation of the two models used for prediction were performed, and seasonal model analysis was also performed. As a result of prediction accuracy, RF showed high prediction accuracy of R² = 0.85 and XGB R² = 0.91, and it was confirmed that XGB was a more suitable model for PM_2.5 prediction than RF. As a result of the seasonal model analysis, it can be said that the prediction performance was good compared to the observed values with high concentrations in spring. In this study, PM_2.5 of Seoul was predicted using various factors, and an ensemble-based PM_2.5 prediction model showing good performance was constructed.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.5_3
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• pp.811-818
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• 2022

Recently, the number of natural and environmental disasters is rapidly increasing due to extreme weather caused by climate change, and the scale of economic losses and damage to human life is increasing accordingly. In addition, with urbanization and industrialization, the characteristics and scale of extreme weather appearance are becoming more complex and large in different ways from the past, and need for remote sensing and artificial intelligence technology for responding and managing global environmental disasters. This special issue investigates environmental disaster observation and management research using remote sensing and artificial intelligence technology, and introduces the results of disaster-related studies such as drought, flood, air pollution, and marine pollution, etc. in South Korea performed by the i-SEED (School of Integrated Science for Sustainable Earth and Environmental Disaster at Pukyong National University). In this special issue, we expect that the results can contribute to the development of monitoring and management technologies that may prevent environmental disasters and reduce damage in advance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.51-66
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• 2022

SST (Sea Surface Temperature) is based on the atmosphere-ocean interaction, one of the most important mechanisms for the Earth system. Because it is a crucial oceanic and meteorological factor for understanding climate change, gap-free grid data at a specific spatial and temporal resolution is beneficial in SST studies. This paper examined the production of daily SST grid maps from 137 stations in 2020 through the ordinary kriging with variogram optimization and their accuracy assessment. The variogram optimization was achieved by WLS (Weighted Least Squares) method, and the blind tests for the interpolation accuracy assessment were conducted by an objective and spatially unbiased sampling scheme. The four-round blind tests showed a pretty high accuracy: a root mean square error between 0.995 and 1.035℃ and a correlation coefficient between 0.981 and 0.982. In terms of season, the accuracy in summer was a bit lower, presumably because of the abrupt change in SST affected by the typhoon. The accuracy was better in the far seas than in the near seas. West Sea showed better accuracy than East or South Sea. It is because the semi-enclosed sea in the near seas can have different physical characteristics. The seasonal and regional factors should be considered for accuracy improvement in future work, and the improved SST can be a member of the SST ensemble around South Korea.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.196-209
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• 2023

The Nishinoshima volcano, located 940 km south of Tokyo, experienced an eruption from June to August 2020. The volcanic gas and ash from the eruption of Nishinoshima that occurred at the end of July 2020 was reported to have the potential to affect the Korean Peninsula. In this study, we used Ash3D, a numerical simulation program for volcanic ash dispersion, to investigate the eruption that occurred at 0:00 local time on July 28, 2020, with a volcanic explosivity index of three. The results showed that the volcanic ash cloud reached Okinawa on the morning of July 30, carried by an east wind. It then moved northward and reached Jeju Island on August 1, eventually circulating in a clockwise direction and reaching southern part of the Korean Peninsula on August 2. The concentration of Particulate Matter 10 (PM₁₀), measured at the Jeju Gosan Meteorological Observatory in Jeju Island, increase from August 1. A similar increase in PM₁₀ concentration was observed at the Gudeok Mountain Weather Station in Busan from August 2. These findings suggested that eruption of the Nishinoshima volcano had an impact on the fine dust concentrations at Jeju Island and southern part of the Korean Peninsula.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.6B
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• pp.597-603
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to improve the short term rainfall forecast skill using neural network model that can deal with the non-linear behavior between satellite data and ground observation, and minimize the flood damage. To overcome the geographical limitation of Korean peninsula and get the long forecast lead time of 3 to 6 hour, the developed rainfall forecast model took satellite imageries and wide range AWS data. The architecture of neural network model is a multi-layer neural network which consists of one input layer, one hidden layer, and one output layer. Neural network is trained using a momentum back propagation algorithm. Flood was estimated using rainfall forecasts. We developed a dynamic flood inundation model which is associated with 1-dimensional flood routing model. Therefore the model can forecast flood aspect in a protected lowland by levee failure of river. In the case of multiple levee breaks at main stream and tributaries, the developed flood inundation model can estimate flood level in a river and inundation level and area in a protected lowland simultaneously.