• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.139-158
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• 2017

CMAQ (Community Multiscale Air Quality Model) simulations were carried out to estimate the potential range of contributions on surface $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations over the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) with the gaseous precursors and Primary Particulate Matters(PPM) available from a recent national emissions inventory. In detail, on top of a base simulation utilizing the 2013 Clean Air Policy Supporting System (CAPSS) emission inventory, a set of Brute Force Method (BFM) simulations after reducing anthropogenic $NO_x$, $SO_2$, $NH_3$, VOCs, and PPM emissions released from area, mobile, and point sources in SMA by 50% were performed in turn. Modeling results show that zero-out contributions(ZOC) of $NH_3$ and PPM emissions from SMA are as high as $4{\sim}5{\mu}g/m^3$ over the region during the modeling period. On the contrary, ZOC of local $NO_x$ and $SO_2$ emissions to SMA $PM_{2.5}$ are less than $1{\mu}g/m^3$. Moreover, model analyses indicate that a wintertime $NO_x$ reduction at least up to 50% increases SMA $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations, probably due to increased HNO3 formation and conversion to aerosols under more abundant ozone and radical conditions after the $NO_x$ reduction. However, a nation-wide $NO_x$ reduction decreased SMA $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations even during winter, which implies that nation-wide reductions would be more effective to curtail SMA $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations than localized efforts.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.705-715
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• 2010

The adoption of carbon foot print system is being activated mostly in the developed countries as one of the long-term response towards tightened up regulations and standards on carbon emission in the agricultural sector. The Korean Ministry of Environment excluded the primary agricultural products from the carbon foot print system due to lack of LCI (life cycle inventory) database in agriculture. Therefore, the research on and establishment of LCI database in the agriculture for adoption of carbon foot print system is urgent. Development of LCA (life cycle assessment) methodology for application of LCA to agricultural environment in Korea is also very important. Application of LCA methodology to agricultural environment in Korea is an early stage. Therefore, this study was carried out to find out the effect of lettuce cultivation on agricultural environment by establishing LCA methodology. Data collection of agricultural input and output for establishing LCI was carried out by collecting statistical data and documents on income from agro and livestock products prepared by RDA. LCA methodology for agriculture was reviewed by investigating LCA methodology and LCA applications of foreign countries. Results based on 1 kg of lettuce production showed that inputs including N, P, organic fertilizers, compound fertilizers and crop protectants were the main sources of major emission factor during lettuce cropping process. The amount of inputs considering the amount of active ingredients was required to estimate the actual quantity of the inputs used. Major emissions due to agricultural activities were $N_2O$ (emission to air) and ${NO_3}^-$/${PO_4}^-$ (emission to water) from fertilizers, organic compounds from pesticides and air pollutants from fossil fuel combustion in using agricultural machines. The softwares for LCIA (life cycle impact assessment) and LCA used in Korea are 'PASS' and 'TOTAL' which have been developed by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Ministry of Environment. However, the models used for the softwares are the ones developed in foreign countries. In the future, development of models and optimization of factors for characterization, normalization and weighting suitable to Korean agricultural environment need to be done for more precise LCA analysis in the agricultural area.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.892-897
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• 2010

LCA (Life Cycle assessment) was carried out to estimate on carbon footprint and to establish of LCI (Life Cycle Inventory) database of sweetpotato production system. Based on collecting the data for operating LCI, it was shown that input of organic fertilizer was value of 3.26E-01 kg $kg^{-1}$ and it of mineral fertilizer was 1.02E-01 kg $kg^{-1}$ for sweetpotato production. It was the highest value among input for sweetpotato production. And direct field emission was 2.47E-02 kg $kg^{-1}$ during sweetpotato cropping. The result of LCI analysis focussed on greenhouse gas (GHG) was showed that carbon footprint was 4.05E-01 kg $CO_2$-eq. $kg^{-1}$ sweetpotato. Especially $CO_2$ for 71% of the GHG emission and the value was 2.88E-01 kg $CO_2$-eq. $kg^{-1}$ sweetpotato. Of the GHG emission $CH_4$, and $N_2O$ were estimated to be 18% and 11%, respectively. It might be due to emit from mainly fertilizer production (32%) and sweetpotato cultivation (28%) for sweetpotato production system. $N_2O$ emitted from sweetpotato cultivation for 90% of the GHG emission. With LCIA (Life Cycle Impact Assessment) for sweetpotato production system, it was observed that the process of fertilizer production might be contributed to approximately 90% of GWP (global warming potential). Characterization value of GWP and POCP were 4.05E-01 $CO_2$-eq. $kg^{-1}$ and 5.08E-05 kg $C_2H_4$-eq. $kg^{-1}$, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.497-514
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• 2017

This study quantitatively analyzes the effects of emission inventory choices on the simulated particulate matter (PM) concentrations and the domestic/foreign contributions in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) with an air quality forecasting system. The forecasting system is composed of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF)-Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE)-Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ). Different domestic and foreign emission inventories were selectively adopted to set up four sets of emissions inputs for air quality simulations in this study. All modeling cases showed that model performance statistics satisfied the criteria levels (correlation coefficient >0.7, fractional error <50%) suggested by previous studies. Notwithstanding the apparently good model performance of total PM concentrations by all emission cases, annual average concentrations of simulated total PM concentrations varied up to $20{\mu}g/m^3$ (160%) depending on the combination of emission inventories. In detail, the difference in simulated annual average concentrations of the primary PM coarse (PMC) was up to $25.2{\mu}g/m^3$ (6.5 times) compared with other cases. Furthermore, model performance analyses on PM species showed that the difference in the simulated primary PMC led to gross model overestimation in general, which indicates that the primary PMC emissions need to be improved. The contribution analysis using model direct outputs indicated that the domestic contributions to the annual average PM concentrations in the SMA vary from 44% to 67%. To account for the uncertainty of the simulated concentration, the contribution correction factor method proposed by Bae et al. (2017) was applied, which resulted in converged contributions(from 48% to 57%). We believe this study shows that it is necessary to improve the simulated concentrations of PM components in order to enhance the accuracy of the forecasting model. It is deemed that these improvements will provide more accurate contribution results.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.480-496
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• 2017

CMAQ (Community Multiscale Air Quality)-HDDM (High-order Direct Decoupled Method) simulations with MICS-Asia 2010 and INTEX-B 2006 emissions inventories were performed to investigate the impact of Chinese $NO_x$ and VOC emissions on 1-hr ozone concentrations over South Korea during May to July in 2014. Chinese $NO_x$ and VOC emissions in MICS-Asia 2010 were 60% higher and 100% lower than those in INTEX-B 2006 during the simulation period. It makes the ratio of Chinese VOC to $NO_x$ emissions in INTEX-B 2006 (Case 1) is 3.2 times higher than that in MICS-Asia 2010 (Case 2). When the observed period mean 1-hr ozone concentration averaged across 106 air monitoring sites in the SMA (Seoul Metropolitan Area) was 37.6 ppb, the modeled values were similar to each other; 37.3 ppb for Case 1, and 40.4 ppb for Case 2. Both cases show that daily maximum 1-hr ZOC (Zero-Out Contribution) of Chinese $NO_x$ and VOC emissions were as high as 55 ppb and 35 ppb for the episode respectively. Correlation coefficients between ZOC of Chinese $NO_x$ and VOC emissions and the SMA daily maximum 1-hr ozone were 0.49~0.69. It indicates that Chinese emissions occasionally affect the SMA daily ozone peaks. On the other hand, Case 2 predicted 7 ppb and 1 ppb higher ZOC of Chinese $NO_x$ and VOC emissions than Case 1, when simulated ozone in the SMA is over 80 ppb. It implies that upwind $NO_x$ emissions would be more important than upwind VOC emissions for the long-range transport of ozone in Northeast Asia.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.306-320
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• 2018

Emission inventory is the essential component for improving the performance of air quality forecasting system. This study evaluated the simulated daily mean $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations in South Korea and China for 1-year period (Sept. 2016~Aug. 2017) using air quality forecasting system which was applied by the emission inventory of E2015 (predicted CAPSS 2015 for South Korea and KORUS 2015 v1 for the other regions). To identify the impacts of emissions on the simulated $PM_{2.5}$, the emission inventory replaced by E2010 (CAPSS 2010 and MIX 2010) were also applied under the same forecasting conditions. These results showed that simulated daily mean $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations had generally suitable performance with both emission data-sets for China (IOA>0.87, R>0.87) and South Korea (IOA>0.84, R>0.76). The impacts of the changes in emission inventories on simulated daily mean $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations were quantitatively estimated. In China, normalized mean bias (NMB) showed 5.5% and 26.8% under E2010 and E2015, respectively. The tendency of overestimated concentrations was larger in North Central and Southeast China than other regions under both E2010 and E2015. Seasonal differences of NMB were higher in non-winter season (28.3% (E2010)~39.3% (E2015)) than winter season (-0.5% (E2010)~8.0% (E2015)). In South Korea, NMB showed -5.4% and 2.8% for all days, but -15.2% and -11.2% for days below $40{\mu}g/m^3$ to minimize the impacts of long-range transport under E2010 and E2015, respectively. For all days, simulated $PM_{2.5}$ concentrations were overestimated in Seoul, Incheon, Southern part of Gyeonggi and Daejeon, and underestimated in other regions such as Jeonbuk, Ulsan, Busan and Gyeongnam, regardless of what emission inventories were applied. Our results suggest that the updated emission inventory, which reflects current status of emission amounts and spatio-temporal allocations, is needed for improving the performance of air quality forecasting.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.56-85
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• 2010

UNESCO World Heritage Programme was introduced following the adoption of Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage by the General Conference of UNESCO in 1972 in order to protect cultural and natural heritage with superb value for all mankind. Despite its short history of less than 40 years, it has been evaluated as one of the most successful of the cultural area projects of UNESCO with 890 world heritage registered worldwide. For systematic protection management of World Heritage, UNESCO, through systemization of registration, emphasis on the importance of preservation management plan, institutionalization of monitoring, and operation of World Heritage Fund, has utilized World Heritage Programme not just as a means of listing excellent cultural properties, but as a preservation planning tool, and accordingly, such policies have had a significant influence on the cultural heritage protection legislations of numerous nations. Korea has ratified World Heritage Convention in 1988, and with the registration of the Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty in 2009, it has 9 World Heritage Sites. Twenty years have passed since Korea joined the World Heritage Programme. While World Heritage registration contributed to publicity of the uniqueness and excellence of Korean cultural properties and improvement of Korea's national culture status, it is now time to devise various legislative/systematic improvement means to reconsider the World Heritage registration strategy and establish a systematic preservation management system. While up until now, the Cultural Properties Protection Law has been amended to arrange for basic rules regarding registration and protection of World Heritage Sites, and some local governments have founded bodies exclusive for World Heritage Site management, a more fundamental and macroscopic plan for World Heritage policy improvement must be sought. Projects and programs in each area for reinforcement of World Heritage policy capacity such as: 1) Enactment of a special law for World Heritage Site preservation management; 2) enactment of ordinances for protection of World Heritage Sites per each local government; 3) reinforcement of policies and management functionality of Cultural Heritage Administration and local governments; 4) dramatic increase in the finances of World Heritage Site protection; 5) requirement to establish plan for World Heritage Site preservation protection; 6) increased support for utilization of World Heritage Sites; 7) substantiation and diversification of World Heritage registration; 8) sharing of information and experiences of World Heritage Sites management among local governments; 9) installation of World Heritage Sites integral archive; 10) revitalization of citizen cooperation and resident participation; 11) training specialized resources for World Heritage Sites protection; 12) revitalization of sustainable World Heritage Sites tourism, must be selected and promoted systematically. Regarding how World Heritage Programme should be domestically accepted and developed, the methods for systemization, scientific approach, and specialization of World Heritage policies were suggested per type. In the future, in-depth and specialized researches and studies should follow.