• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.169-178
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• 2021

BACKGROUND: The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is promoting agri-environment conservation program to induce farmers to participate in agricultural environment improvement and conservation activities. However, assessment tools based on scientific evidence are needed to determine the effectiveness of the program objectively and quantitatively. Therefore, this study was performed to develop plant indicators in order to efficiently evaluate the effects of the agri-environment conservation program promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. METHODS AND RESULTS: The survey was conducted in five regions (Hampyeong, Boryeong, Mungyeong, Hongseong, and Sangju) participating in the agri-eonvironment conservation program. In each region, twenty paddy fields were investigated (ten paddy fields included in the program and ten paddy fields not included in the program). A total of 231 taxa vascular plants were identified in the paddy fields that were included in the agri-environment conservation program, and a total of 177 taxa were identified in the paddy fields that were not included. The average species number occurred on each field was 55.8 taxa in the fields included in the program, and 35.0 taxa in the fields not included in the program. The difference in occurring plants between two groups was found to be more higher in perennial plants than in annual plants. We selected the six groups as indicator plants through five criteria such as perennial plants and broadly occurring species, etc. to verify the effectiveness of the agri-environment conservation program: Taraxacum spp., Ixeris spp., Viola spp., Platago spp., Calystegia spp., and rare and endagered species. There was a high positive correlation between the score calculated using these indicator plants and the total number of plants species. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that it is possible to evaluate the agro-ecological environment by using indicator plants. The selected indicator plants can be effectively used to verify the effectiveness of projects such as agri-environmental conservation programs in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.127-141
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• 2017

The interest on rural ecological landscape has recently grown on the part of policy makers for rural development. While considerable efforts and resources have been invested to preserve and utilize rural landscape, we still lack a systematic means to quantify and evaluate ecosystem service value of the rural landscape and management status. So this study suggests rural ecological landscape management indicator considering ecosystem service value. It consists of 28 criteria and 107 subcategories, which can be applied to rural village. And We have applied ecosystem service value assessment and resident's management status on three villages, Moondang village, Yonggye village, and Sesim village.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.334-340
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• 2005

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the nutrient loss and to assess the eutrophication into small stream by intensive rains in the steeped cornfield during cultivation. The crop cultivated was a soiling com (DW5969), and the experimental plots were divided into two parts that were 10 and 18% of slope degrees. The amount of T-N and T-P loss was calculated by analysis of surface run-off water quality, and was investigated the effect of eutrophication to small stream as a part of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology application. For the surface run-off water quality, EC and T-N values were highest in first runoff event as compared to the other events and maintained the stage state with litter variations at every hour during the runoff period except for EC in the slope 18%. However, T-P concentration has been a transient stage after runoff event of July 27. Total surface run-off ratio was not significantly different with slope degrees, but amount of T-N and T-P losses at 18% of slope were high as $5.96kg\;ha^{-1}\;and\;0.65kg\;ha^{-1}$ as relative to 10% of slope degree, respectively. Furthermore, T-N losses from run-off water in the sloped cornfield 10 and 18% were approximately 9.8 and 12.5% of the N applied as fertilizer when the fertilizer applied at recommended rates after soil test, respectively. For the eutrophication impact to the small stream, it was shown that $PO_4$ equivalence and Eco-indicator value at 18% of slope degree were greater as much $6.11kg\;ha^{-1}$ and 0.81 as compared to the slope angle 10%, respectively. Therefore, it was appeared that each effect of nutrient losses, eutrophication and Eco-indicator value was enhanced according with higher slope degree.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.379-383
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• 2015

Indicators of environmental conditions describe the state of the environment and the quantity and quality of natural resources. This study deduced the evaluation items to assess each sub-indicator for agricultural water quality and conducted the surveying using the Delphi method based on agricultural water quality experts. Considering its importance, environmental, state, and management indicators showed that state indicator such as COD concentration for surface water and $NO_3-N$ concentration for groundwater was ranked as first and followed by amount of fertilizer. Its indicators were correlated with state and environmental indicators in surface water and groundwater. The best management indicators were calculated to assess the agricultural surface water and ground water quality. The indicator could be used in established policies for management and conservation of water resources.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.27-33
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• 2019

Agricultural water for crops are faced with the need to improve the use efficiency due to the impact of climate change. Water productivity (WP) is known as a good indicator for assessing resources efficiency. This study was conducted to assess WP of rice and potential water consumption (PWC) as new indicator for water use efficiency assessment. The average of WP was 0.7 kg/㎥, and Jeonbuk had the highest WP as 0.83 kg/㎥. Kangwon and Kyungbuk had the lowest WP as 0.59 kg/㎥. PWC showed the same trend because of rice consumption per capita, but Total PWC considering population living in each province showed the different trend with PWC. Every year, the changing patterns of WP was increasing little by little, and the patterns of PWC was decreasing greatly than WP. These results mean that WP has been slowly improved through breed development and irrigation techniques, and PWC was affected by reduced rice consumption and WP increasing. PWC could also be useful as an indicator to compare the water use efficiency between provinces or nations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.33-36
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to develope a indicator for agricultural water use. Agricultural water is challenged by the increase of water use in the sectors of urbanization and industry and social pressure to use water in sustainable and environmentally sound way. The development of agricultural environment indicators is divided into 13 sectors, among which agricultural water use indicators include amount and intensity of agricultural water use, efficiency of agricultural water use, shortage or surplus of water use, water stress, etc.. Agricultural water use indicators provide basic data for sustainable and environmentally sound agricultural development, and also help policy decision makers to solve water shortage problems through water policy and water management measures by making the most of the total available water resources.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.44 no.4 s.141
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• pp.307-315
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• 2005

In this study we tried to develop a biological method for evaluating environment using the potter wasps as an indicator. Wasp species in family Eumenidae, were collected from 13 locations including agricultural area using nest trap. The wasps collected were classified and selected candidate species as an environmental evaluation indicator. Seven species were collected and the Anterhynchium flavomarginatum was the most dominant species. The number of the nest of potter wasps was 12.8/m both in the non-fertilizer and the non-pesticide areas and 7.2/m in the general agricultural areas. The number of nests was 13.4/m in the location where the Degree of Green Naturality (DGN) was high (4.28) and it was 1.2/m where the DGN was low (1.00), suggesting that the index of both richness and diversity tend to increase in locations with more nests. Based on these results, A. flavomarginatum, Orancistrocerus drewseni (Saussure), Isodontia nigellus and Chalicodoma sculpturalis were selected as indicator species for the evaluation of environment including agricultural ecosystem. And a standard for grading an environment (I to IV) was made based on the occurrence, the total number of nesting and the species diversity of potter wasps.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.248-259
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• 2021

BACKGROUND: Contaminated water was a major source of food-borne pathogens in various recent fresh produce-related outbreaks. This study was conducted to investigate the microbial contamination level and correlations between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens in agricultural water by logistic regression analysis. METHODS AND RESULTS: Agricultural water was collected from 457 sites including surface water (n=300 sites) and groundwater (n=157 sites) in South Korea from 2018 to 2020. Sanitary indicator bacteria (total coliform, fecal coliform, and Escherichia coli) and food-borne pathogens (pathogenic E. coli, E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., and Listeria monocytogenes) were analyzed. In surface water, the coliform, fecal coliform, and E. coli were 3.27±0.89 log CFU/100 mL, 1.90±1.19 log CFU/100 mL, and 1.39±1.26 log CFU/100 mL, respectively. For groundwater, three kinds of sanitary indicators ranged in the level from 0.09 - 0.57 log CFU/100 mL. Pathogenic E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes were detected from 3%-site, 1.5%- site, and 0.6%-site water samples, respectively. According to the results of correlations between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens by logistic regression analysis, the probability of pathogen detection increased individually by 1.45 and 1.34 times as each total coliform and E. coli concentration increased by 1 log CFU/100mL. The accuracy of the model was 70.4%, and sensitivity and specificity were 81.5% and 51.7%, respectively. CONCLUSION(S): The results indicate the need to manage the microbial risk of agricultural water to enhance the safety of fresh produce. In addition, logistic regression analysis is useful to analyze the correlation between the level of sanitary indicator bacteria and the detection ratio of pathogens in agricultural water.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.321-327
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• 2006

In Korea, there is a growing competitive for water resources between industrial, domestic and agricultural consumer, and the environment as many other OECD countries. The demand on water use is also affecting aquatic ecosystems particularly where withdrawals are in excess of minimum environmental needs for rivers, lakes and wetland habits. OECD developed three indicators related to water use by the agriculture in above contexts : the first is a water use intensity indicator, which is expressed as the quantity or share of agricultural water use in total national water utilization; the second is a water stress indicator, which is expressed as the proportion of rivers (in length) subject to diversion or regulation for irrigation without reserving a minimum of limiting reference flow; and the third is a water use efficiency indicator designated as the technical and the economic efficiency. These indicators have different meanings in the aspect of water resource conservation and sustainable water use. So, it will be more significant that the indicators should reflect the intrinsic meanings of them. The problem is that the aspect of an overall water flow in the agro-ecosystem and recycling of water use not considered in the assessment of agricultural water use needed for calculation of these water use indicators. Namely, regional or meteorological characteristics and site-specific farming practices were not considered in the calculation of these indicators. In this paper, we tried to calculate water use indicators suggested in OECD and to modify some other indicators considering our situation because water use pattern and water cycling in Korea where paddy rice farming is dominant in the monsoon region are quite different from those of semi-arid regions. In the calculation of water use intensity, we excluded the amount of water restored through the ground from the total agricultural water use because a large amount of water supplied to the farm was discharged into the stream or the ground water. The resultant water use intensity was 22.9% in 2001. As for water stress indicator, Korea has not defined nor monitored reference levels of minimum flow rate for rivers subject to diversion of water for irrigation. So, we calculated the water stress indicator in a different way from OECD method. The water stress indicator was calculated using data on the degree of water storage in agricultural water reservoirs because 87% of water for irrigation was taken from the agricultural water reservoirs. Water use technical efficiency was calculated as the reverse of the ratio of irrigation water to a standard water requirement of the paddy rice. The efficiency in 2001 was better than in 1990 and 1998. As for the economic efficiency for water use, we think that there are a lot of things to be taken into considerations to make a useful indicator to reflect socio-economic values of agricultural products resulted from the water use. Conclusively, site-specific, regional or meteorogical characteristics as in Korea were not considered in the calculation of water use indicators by methods suggested in OECD(Volume 3, 2001). So, it is needed to develop a new indicators for the indicators to be more widely applicable in the world.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.159-165
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• 2019

BACKGROUND: The water footprint (WF) is an indicator of freshwater use that appears not only at direct water use of a consumer or producer, but also at the indirect water use. As an indicator of 'water use', the water footprint includes the green, blue, and grey WF, and differs from the classical measure of 'water withdrawal' because of green and grey WF. This study was conducted to assess and estimate the water footprint of the soybean and Chinese cabbage. METHODS AND RESULTS: APEX model with weather data, soil and water quality data from NAS (National Institute of Agricultural Sciences), and farming data from RDA (Rural Development Administration) was operated for analyzing the WF of the crops. As the result of comparing the yield estimated from APEX with the yield extracted from statistic data of each county, the coefficients of determination were 0.83 for soybean and 0.97 for Chinese cabbage and p-value was statistically significant. The WFs of the soybean and Chinese cabbage at production procedure were 1,985 L/Kg and 58 L/Kg, respectively. This difference may have originated from the cultivation duration. The WF ratios of soybean were 91.1% for green WF and 8.9% for grey WF, but the WF ratios of Chinese cabbage were 41.5% for green WF and 58.5% for grey WF. CONCLUSION: These results mean that the efficiency of water use for soybean is better than that for Chinese cabbage. The results could also be useful as an information to assess environmental impact of water use and agricultural farming on soybean and Chinese cabbage.