• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.70-80
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• 2011

Estuarine ecosystem responds sensitively to natural and anthropogenic perturbations. lt is necessary to identify the direction of the change when the perturbation occurs as well as to understand the structure and functioning of estuarine ecosystem for a proper management of the area. In this study, the estuarine habitats were classified into different ecological districts so as to the switch from one district to another district could be related to the environmental change due to the perturbations. Total 16 ecological districts was defined according to the presence of barrage, salinity and vegetation characteristics. The defined ecological districts were applied to small estuaries in Goseong bay, south sea of Korea (Baedun, Guman, Maam, Goseong) to distinguish different regions which might have characteristic bottom topography, inclinations of river bottom, sediment characteristics, salinity structure and area of vegetation. Total 7 out of 16 ecological district was identified in this region; NFB (natural, fresh, bare), NHB (natural, high salinity, bare), NLV (natural, low salinity, vegetated) in natural (without barrage) estuaries and CFB (closed, fresh, bare), CFV( closed, fresh vegetated), CLV (closed, low salinity, vegetated), CHB (closed, high salinity, bare) in closed (with barrage) estuary. A comparison of environmental factors and biota between CHB and CLV demonstrated the effect of barrage on estuarine ecosystem. The height and sediment characteristics of CHB and CLV were similar but the average salinity was lower in CLV than in CHB due to the barrage, which produced favorable condition for the Phragmites australis in CLV. Information regarding the ecological districts in various sizes and location could be useful for predicting the ecosystem change due to natural and anthropogenic perturbations and for preparing management actions.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.236-243
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• 2016

It was a case study to use as a basic data for efficient the preservation and management of subalpine coniferous forest in national parks. It is based on inhabitation condition of 210 individuals of Abies koreana Wilson that was found through local investigation in the sub-alpine zone of Jirisan National Park and Songnisan National Park. It analyzed the effect of the geographical location and topographical features, which are the basics of location environment, on the growth of A. koreana. The variables related to the growth of A. koreana are tree height and diameter at breast height. Topographical features include geographical longitude, altitude above sea level, slope of the mountains, aspect that describes the direction in which a slope faces and topographical wetness index. Topographical features were extracted through GIS spatial analysis. It used canonical correlation analysis to estimate whether the two variables groups have related to each other and how much they are related, if any, and estimated the effect of the geographical and topographical features on the growth structure of A. koreana using multiple regression analysis. The tree height and diameter at breast height that represent the growth structure of A. koreana show greater relation to geographical latitude distribution than topographical feature and the geographical and topographical factors show greater relation to diameter at breast height than tree height. The growth structure's variable and geographical and topographical variable of A. koreana have meaningful relation and the result shows that geographical and topographical variables explain 18.1% of the growth structure. The variables that affect the diameter at breast height of A. koreana are geographical latitude, topographical wetness index, aspect and altitude, which are put in order of statistical significance. The higher the latitude is, the smaller the diameter at breast height. Depending on the topographical feature, it becomes bigger. The variable that affects the tree height is topographical wetness index, which was the only meaningful variable. Overall, the tree height and diameter at breast height that are related to the growth structure of A. koreana are affected by geographical and topographical feature. It showed that the geographical feature affected it the most. Especially the effect of water among the topographical features is expected to be bigger than the other topographical factors. Based on the result, it is expected that geographical and topographical feature is an important factor for the growth structure of A. koreana. Even though it considered only the geographical and topographical features and used spatial analysis data produced by GIS, the research results will be useful for investigating and researching the growth environment of coniferous forest inhabiting in sub-alpine zone of national parks and are expected to be used as basic data for establishing measures to efficiently manage and preserve evergreen needleaf tree such as A. koreana.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.42-50
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to set the direction to manage national parks to cope with climate change, and offer basic data to establish the relevant policies. Towards this end, this study analyzed the current and future climate change vulnerability of national parks using the 24 proxy variables of vulnerability in the LCCGIS program, a tool to evaluate climate change vulnerability developed by the National Institute of Environmental Research. To analyze and evaluate the current status of and future prospect on climate change vulnerability of national parks, the proxy variable value of climate exposure was calculated by making a GIS spatial thematic map with $1km{\times}1km$ grid unit through the application of climate change scenario (RCP8.5). The values of proxy variables of sensitivity and adaptation capability were calculated using the basic statistics of national parks. The values of three vulnerability evaluation items were calculated regarding the present (2010s) and future (2050s). The current values were applied to the future equally under the assumption that the current state of the proxy variables related to sensitivity and adaptation capability without a future prediction scenario continues. Seoraksan, Odaesan, Jirisan and Chiaksan National Parks are relatively bigger in terms of the current (2010s) climate exposure. The national park, where the variation of heat wave is the biggest is Wolchulsan National Park. The biggest variation of drought occurs to Gyeryongsan National Park, and Woraksan National Park has the biggest variation of heavy rain. Concerning the climate change sensitivity of national parks, Jirisan National Park is the most sensitive, and adaptation capability is evaluated to be the highest. Gayasan National Park's sensitivity is the lowest, and Chiaksan National Park is the lowest in adaptation capability. As for climate change vulnerability, Seoraksan, Odaesan, Chiaksan and Deogyusan National Parks and Hallyeohaesang National Park are evaluated as high at the current period. The national parks, where future vulnerability change is projected to be the biggest, are Jirisan, Woraksan, Chiaksan and Sobaeksan National Parks in the order. Because such items evaluating the climate change vulnerability of national parks as climate exposure, sensitivity and adaptation capability show relative differences according to national parks' local climate environment, it will be necessary to devise the adaptation measures reflecting the local climate environmental characteristics of national parks, rather than establishing uniform adaptation measures targeting all national parks. The results of this study that evaluated climate change vulnerability using climate exposure, sensitivity and adaptation capability targeting Korea's national parks are expected to be used as basic data for the establishment of measures to adapt to climate change in consideration of national parks' local climate environmental characteristics. However, this study analyzed using only the proxy variables presented by LCCGIS program under the situation that few studies on the evaluation of climate change vulnerability of national parks are found, and therefore this study may not reflect overall national parks' environment properly. A further study on setting weights together with an objective review on more proper proxy variables needs to be carried out in order to evaluate the climate change vulnerability of national parks.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.50-64
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• 2019

Recently, quantitative analyses of food web structure based on carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes are widely applied to environmental assessments as well as ecological researches of various ecosystems, particularly rivers and streams. In the present study, we analyzed carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of POM (both planktonic and attached forms), zooplankton, benthic macroinvertebrates and fish collected from 6 sites located at Nakdong River. Samples were collected from upstream areas of 5 weirs (Sangju, Gangjeong-Goryeong, Dalseong, Hapcheon-Changnyeong, and Changnyeong-Haman Weirs) and one downstream area of Hapcheon-Changnyeong Weir in dry season (June) and after rainy season (September). We suggested ranges of their carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios and calculated their trophic levels in the food web to compare their temporal and spatial variations. Trophic levels of organisms were relatively higher in Sangju Weir located at upper part of Nakdong River, and decreased thereafter. However, the trophic levels were recovered at the Changnyeong-Haman Weir, the lowest weir in the river. The trophic level calculated by nitrogen stable isotope ratios showed more reliable ranges when they were calculated based on zooplankton than POM used as baseline. The suggested quantitative ecological information of the majority of biological communities in Nakdong River would be helpful to understand the response of river food web to environmental disturbances and can be applied to various further researches regarding the quantitative approaches for the understanding food web structure and function of river ecosystems as well as restoration.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.10-18
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• 2022

This study analyzed the relationship between the community structure of benthic macroinvertebrates and habitat changes in open estuaries among the sites included in the national estuary monitoring program. The estuary survey was conducted under the "Guidelines for Investigation and Evaluation of Biometric Networks" and classified by sea area, 80 places in the East Sea, 102 places in the South Sea, and 19 places in the West Sea were investigated. In a total of 201 open estuaries, benthic macroinvertebrates were identified with 4 phyla, 9 classes, 41 orders, 139 families, 269 species and 196 species in the East Sea, 182 species in the South Sea, and 90 species in the West Sea. The highest population densities were Insecta in the East Sea, the Malacostraca in the South Sea, and the Annelida in the West Sea. Through SIMPER analysis, species contributing to the similarity of benthic macroinvertebrates communities in each sea area were identified. Some species greatly influenced the similarity of clusters. The benthic community in the East Sea was affected by the salinity, so the contribution rate of freshwater species was high. On the other hand, the benthic communities of the South and West Seas showed species compositions are influenced by the substrate composition. As results, the benthic macroinvertebrate community in Korean estuaries was impacted by salinity and substrate simultaneously, and the close relationship with geographical distance was not observed. The result of this study is expected to be used to respond to environmental changes by identifying and predicting changes in the diversity and distribution of benthic macroinvertebrates in Korea estuaries.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.57 no.8
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• pp.533-548
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• 2024

Due to climate change with extreme weather events, occurrences of unprecedented heavy rainfall have become more frequent. Since it is difficult to perfectly predict and prevent flood damages, the limitation of traditional prevention-centered approaches has come a issue. The concept of "resilience" has therefore been developed which emphasizes the ability to swiftly recover from damages to previous states or to even better conditions. In this study, we 1) developed a total of 20 domestic flood resilience indicators based on the 4R principles (Redundancy, Robustness, Rapidity, Resourcefulness), 2) conducted applicability evaluations targeting specific disaster-prone areas, and 3) assessed the importance of each indicator through Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis with flood-related experts. To confirm the suitability of the developed flood resilience indicators, multicollinearity analysis was performed, and the results indicated that all 20 indicators had tolerance limits above 0.1 and Variance Inflation Factors (VIF) below 10, demonstrating suitability as factors. Furthermore, evaluations of proposed indicators were carried out targeting disaster-prone areas in 2022(21 areas), and AHP analysis was utilized to determine the relative importance of each indicator. The analysis revealed that the importance of each indicator was as follows: Robustness 0.46, Rapidity 0.22, Redundancy 0.17, and Resourcefulness 0.16, with Robustness exhibiting the highest importance. Regarding the sub-indicators that had the greatest influence on each 4R component, river embankment maintenance emerged as the most influential for Robustness, healthcare services for Rapidity, fiscal autonomy of local governments for Resourcefulness, and drainage facilities for Redundancy.