• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.343-349
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• 2010

In Korea, man-caused forest fires are known originate primarily in coniferous forests. We have hypothesized that the vulnerability of Pinus densiflora forests is principally a consequence of the ignition characteristics of the species. To assess this hypothesis, we conducted two combustion experiments using fallen leaves with a reference species, Quercus variabilis. In the first experiments, in which a cigarette was employed as a primary heat source for the initiation of a forest fire, the Pinus leaves caught fire significantly faster (1'1" at Pinus, 1'31" at Quercus, P < 0.001), and ignition proceeded normally. Quercus leaves, on the other hand, caught fire but did not ignite successfully. In the second set of experiments utilizing different moisture contents and fuel loads, the maximum flame temperature of the Pinus leaves was significantly higher ($421^{\circ}C$ at Pinus, $361^{\circ}C$ at Quercus, P < 0.001) and the combustion persisted for longer than in the Quercus leaves (8'8" at Pinus, 3'38" at Quercus, P < 0.001). The moisture contents of the leaves appeared to be a more important factor in the maximum temperature achieved, whereas the most important factor in burning time was the amount of fuel. Overall, these results support the assumption that Pinus leaves can be ignited even by low-heat sources such as cigarettes. Additionally, once ignited, Pinus leaves burn at a relatively high flame temperature and burn for a prolonged period, thus raising the possibility of frequent fire occurrences and spread into crown fires in forests of P. densiflora.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.275-284
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• 2001

This study was carried out to evaluate high resolution satellite imagery of IKONOS for classifying the land cover, especially forest type. The IKONOS imagery of 11km$\times$11km size was taken on April 24, 2000 in Bong-pyoung Myun Pyungchang-Gun, Kangwon Province. Land cover classes were water, coniferous evergreen, Larix leptolepis, broad-leaved tree, bare land, farm land, grassland, sandy soil and asphalted area. Supervised classification method with algorithm of maximum likelihood was applied for classification. The terrestrial survey was also carried out to collect the reference data in this area. The accuracy of the classification was analyzed with the items of overall accuracy, producer's accuracy, user's accuracy and k for test area through the error matrix. In the accuracy analysis of the test area, overall accuracy was 94.3%, producer's accuracy was 77.0-99.9%, user's accuracy was 71.9-100% and k and 0.93. Classes of bare land, sandy soil and farm land were less clear than other classes, whereas classification result of IKONOS in forest area showed higher performance than that of other resolution(5-30m) satellite data.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.110 no.1
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• pp.72-81
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• 2021

We developed smartphone application and web application server to acquire and effectively manage tree measurement information. Smartphone applications can measure tree height, diameter at breast height (DBH), azimuth, altitude, slope, and positional coordinates using augmented reality (Google AR core) and motion sensors. The web application server effectively manages and stores measurement information. To evaluate the accuracy of information acquired using a smartphone, 90 Korean pine trees (Pinus koraiensis) were randomly selected from a natural mixed forest, with a total of 90 representative trees randomly collected from a natural mixed forest. Then, height and DBH were measured using a Haglof Vertex Laser Hypsometer and caliper. Comparisons of the results indicated significant results at the 95% level and a very high average correlation of 0.972 for both tree height and DBH. In terms of DBH, the average errors were 0.6745 cm and 1.0139 cm for artificial coniferous and natural mixed forests, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.81 no.4
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• pp.325-336
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• 1992

The successional status and potential natural vegetation were examined in a mixed broadleaved-Abies forest located at Mt, Odae National Park. The examination was based on the subsequent process of generation replacement by understory saplings for the dominant canopy trees within 88 $5m{\times}50m$ belt transects. The transition matrix model, which was modified from mathematical theory of Markov chain, was employed to analyze the successional status of the study forest. The model suggests that the study forest is still seral, and it is considered to be more than 700 years away from the steady state or climax in terms of species composition. The simulations predict a remarkable decrease in the proportion of species composition of the present dominant Quercus mongolica and Tilia amurensi.s from current 28% and 13% to less than 3% and 5%, respectively, at the steady state. On the contrary, the proportions of Abies holophylla, Acer pseudo-sieboldianum, Carpinus cordata, and Pinus koraiensis will increase at the steady state. The ratio of mixture between deciduous and coniferous trees will be gradually changed from current 6.5 : 3.5 to 5.0 : 5.0 at equilibrium. Discussion for the problems of Quercus mongolica in successional status noted that the species behaved as a mid-successional dominant, not a climax species in the study forest. The hypothesis and sensitivity of the transition matrix model were also discussed to evaluate the applicability to the real situation. The overall results indicated that the present dynamics of the forest must reflect the seral state due to previous disturbance mainly by hyman related interference.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.108 no.4
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• pp.552-561
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• 2019

In korea, debris-flow disasters are induced by typhoon and localized torrential rainfall annually. These disasters are particularly severe in the Korean national park due to its geomorphological characteristics. This study was conducted to analyze the landslide characteristics and forest environmental factors of landslide areas located in rugged mountain range in the Korean national park (Mt. Seorak, Mt. Jiri, and Mt. Sobaek). Overall, landslides occurred at 474 sites. The average area of the landslide scar among these sites was 1,212 ㎡. The average landslide sediment was 1,389 ㎥, average landslide length was 75 m, and the average width was 12.9 m. The landslides frequently occurred in regions with igneous rock and coniferous forest. In addition, slope gradient degree (31°-40°), slope gradient direction (N), vertical slope (concave), cross slope (concave), altitude (401-800 m), position (middle), stream order (first order), forest type (mixed), parent rock (igneous), and soil depth (<46 cm). The relationship between landslide soil volume and environmental factors showed positive correlation. The variables of vertical slope (complex), altitude (<1,201 m), and soil depth (<46 cm) correlated significantly at 1 % level.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.1-12
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• 2019

It is important to measure the height of trees as an essential element for assessing the forest health in urban areas. Therefore, an automated method that can measure the height of individual tree as a three-dimensional forest information is needed in an extensive and dense forest. Since airborne LiDAR dataset is easy to analyze the tree height(z-coordinate) of forests, studies on individual tree height measurement could be performed as an assessment forest health. Especially in urban forests, that adversely affected by habitat fragmentation and isolation. So this study was analyzed to measure the height of individual trees for assessing the urban forests health, Furthermore to identify environmental factors that affect forest growth. The survey was conducted in the Mt. Bongseo located in Seobuk-gu. Cheonan-si(Middle Chungcheong Province). We segment the individual trees on coniferous by automatic method using the airborne LiDAR dataset of the two periods (year of 2016 and 2017) and to find out individual tree growth. Segmentation of individual trees was performed by using the watershed algorithm and the local maximum, and the tree growth was determined by the difference of the tree height according to the two periods. After we clarify the relationship between the environmental factors affecting the tree growth. The tree growth of Mt. Bongseo was about 20cm for a year, and it was analyzed to be lower than 23.9cm/year of the growth of the dominant species, Pinus rigida. This may have an adverse effect on the growth of isolated urban forests. It also determined different trees growth according to age, diameter and density class in the stock map, effective soil depth and drainage grade in the soil map. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between the distance to the road and the solar radiation as an environmental factor affecting the tree growth. Since there is less correlation, it is necessary to determine other influencing factors affecting tree growth in urban forests besides anthropogenic influences. This study is the first data for the analysis of segmentation and the growth of the individual tree, and it can be used as a scientific data of the urban forest health assessment and management.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.27-43
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• 2019

This study applied the LANDIS-II model to the forest vegetation of the study area in Yeongdong-gun, Korea to identify climate effects on ecosystems of forest vegetation. The main purpose of the study is to examine the long-term changes in forest aboveground biomass(AGB) under three different climate change scenarios; The baseline climate scenario is to maintain the current climate condition; the RCP 4.5 scenario is a stabilization scenario to employ of technologies and strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; the RCP 8.5 scenario is increasing greenhouse gas emissions over time representative with 936ppm of $CO_2$ concentration by 2100. The vegetation survey and tree-ring analysis were conducted to work out the initial vegetation maps and data for operation of the LANDIS model. Six types of forest vegetation communities were found including Quercus mongolica - Pinus densiflora community, Quercus mongolica community, Pinus densiflora community, Quercus variabilis-Quercus acutissima community, Larix leptolepis afforestation and Pinus koraiensis afforestation. As for changes in total AGB under three climate change scenarios, it was found that RCP 4.5 scenario featured the highest rate of increase in AGB whereas RCP 8.5 scenario yielded the lowest rate of increase. These results suggest that moderately elevated temperatures and $CO_2$ concentrations helped the biomass flourish as photosynthesis and water use efficiency increased, but huge increase in temperature ($above+4.0^{\circ}C$) has resulted in the increased respiration with increasing temperature. Consequently, Species productivity(Biomass) of trees decrease as the temperature is elevated drastically. It has been confirmed that the dominant species in all scenarios was Quercus mongolica. Like the trends shown in the changes of total AGB, it revealed the biggest increase in the AGB of Quercus mongolica under the RCP 4.5 scenario. AGB of Quercus mongolica and Quercus variabilis decreased in the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios after 2050 but have much higher growth rates of the AGB starting from 2050 under the baseline scenario. Under all scenarios, the AGB of coniferous species was eventually perished in 2100. In particular they were extinguished in early stages of the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. This is because of natural selection of communities by successions and the failure to adapt to climate change. The results of the study could be expected to be effectively utilized to predict changes of the forest ecosystems due to climate change and to be used as basic data for establishing strategies for adaptation climate changes and the management plans for forest vegetation restoration in ecological restoration fields.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.111 no.2
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• pp.302-310
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• 2022

Here we aimed to classify the major coniferous tree species (Pinus densiflora, Pinus koraiensis, and Larix kaempferi) by tree measurement information and machine learning algorithms to establish an efficient forest management plan. We used national forest monitoring information amassed over nine years for the measurement information of trees, and random forest (RF), XGBoost (XGB), and light GBM (LGBM) as machine learning algorithms. We compared and evaluated the accuracy of the algorithm through performance evaluation using the accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score of the algorithm. The RF algorithm had the highest performance evaluation score for all tree species, and highest scores for Pinus densiflora, with an accuracy of about 65%, a precision of about 72%, a recall of about 60%, and an F1 score of about 66%. The classification accuracy for the dominant trees was higher than about 80% in the crown classes, but that of the co-dominant trees, the intermediate trees, and the overtopper trees was evaluated as low. We consider that the results of this study can be used as reference data for decision-making in the selection of thinning trees for forest management.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.211-222
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• 2013

Objectives: A great number of people visit forests for their bountiful healing factors. We investigated the quantity of terpene and analyzed the correlations with meteorological and environmental factors at Mt. Mudeung in order to support public health. Methods: The terpene amounts were investigated along 11 main trails using stainless steel tube packed by Tenax TA (150 mg) and Carbopack B (130 mg) during March to November 2012. Terpene amounts of 20 species (${\alpha}$-pinene, camphene, etc.), and meteorological and environmental factors were investigated in the field. Results: Terpene of 16 species was released from the forest and total terpene amounts were 2,080 pptv at the site of Chamaecyparis obtusa, the highest among 11 sites, nearby the first reservoir on Mt. Mudeung. Terpene concentrations in the forest were nine to 23 times higher than found in urban areas. Total terpene amounts had positive correlations with temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and oxygen (p<0.01) with $R^2$ of 0.345, 0.369, 0.591, 0.145, respectively, from April to July. Wind speed and solar radiation in the forest had a negative correlation with terpene amounts and showed statistical insignificance with p-values of 0.118 and 0.233, respectively. Conclusions: This study suggests that the amounts of terpene around Mt. Mudeung are indeed higher, so visitors may enjoy a therapeutic walk in the forest with a healing effect. These results showed the forest was very effective for improving human health.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2014

Allometric equations for leaf, branch, stem and total above ground biomass of Pinus koraeinsis trees were developed with diameter at breast height(DBH) of trees, which were growing in a pine plantation with the stand density of 410 tree $ha^{-1}$ and the average DBH of $29.1{\pm}5.2$ cm in Mt. Taewha, Gyeonggi. Damage by Acantholyda parki reduced leaf biomass compared to other studies, however, its contribution to total biomass was minimal among parts. Comprehensive analysis revealed that constant in allometric equation for total above ground biomass (logY=a + blogX) was affected by average DBH and stand density, however, constant b was not. At the stand level, biomass for leaf, brach, stem, total above ground biomass were 6.68 Mg $ha^{-1}$, 18.82 Mg $ha^{-1}$, 101.02 Mg $ha^{-1}$, 126.53 Mg $ha^{-1}$, respectively. We developed a Korean pine stand biomass regression, which explained about 98% of variation with DBH and stand density based on comprehensive analysis.