• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.638-651
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• 2022

Last year, a new perception of the right to peace on the Korean Peninsula was adopted: DMZ Yanggu Peace Declaration 2021. The Declaration reflects that there is a raising of necessity for a new perception and approach from the perspective of DMZ-related laws, sustainable ecological environment and security. Gangwon is making considerable efforts to make the border area in DMZ as an area of peace by continuously enhancing publicity on the establishment of the 'Peace Special Self-Governing Province'. This study suggests the necessity of a paradigm shift towards the significance of the interkorean border region that it should function as a passage between the South and the North rather than a dam. For, to be renewed as a sustainably developing region through newly constructed flow of communication, the wall of hostility must preliminarily fall dawn. Then a question arises about how Gangwon is, out of other border region, most eligible for the reconsideration of its significance as a border area. The answer relies on the newly established agenda and understandings towards the right to peace in the perspective of founding the policy for the Unification of the Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, the conservation of DMZ ecological environment through enlistment of UNESCO Biosphere Reserve should go hand in hand with the ultimate value of global agenda of the conservation and protection of the environment. The study insists that the peace zone is a prerequisite for the adaption of the era of future-oriented glocalization featured by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Up to this date, the border area was an area of pain and agony. It is time for Gangwon to be reborn as an area of peace and coexistence. The aim of this study is to point a direction for Gangwon to become a sustainably developing region by illuminating the value of the Gangwon border area as a new area of peace.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.675-687
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• 2023

The border area between the South and North Korea is considered a stage for promoting Green Détent through the transformation of the Demilitarized Zone into the Green Peace Zone. This paper proposes 'Prosuming-index' composed of items to evaluate the multi-layered nature of industrial and infrastructure projects in the ecological and environmental fields planned in the border area. Based on the prosuming-index, we derived the following four types of potential for Green Detent practice in the border area-first, the Incheon and Ganghwa regions as 'a logistics/human network and agricultural/fishery production area', second, the northern Gyeonggi region as a 'cooperative network area based on the smart technology industries', third, the western Gangwon and the parts of nothern Gyeonggi region, as 'a multiple prosumer's area based on carbon neutral technologies', lastly, the eastern Gangwon region, as 'a transition area from idle or aged infrastructure to green infrastructure through the renewable energy industries'.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.568-582
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• 2022

This study identifies regional problems caused by the relocation and dismantlement of military units by the government's Defense Reform 2.0 and examines the current situation. This study provides policy implications for future regional development by discussing the use of military idle land in the border region and seeking how to revitalize the region through urban regeneration. In order to utilize and manage the military idle land, first, the mutually beneficial development of the military unit and the local community must be achieved through the establishment of governance between private, government, and military sectors. Second, review and improvement of laws and systems related to border regions and military idle lands should be accompanied. Third, the various ideas and policies that reflect the uniqueness of the border region must be established. Finally, this study provided implications for the efficient utilization and management of sustainable idle land by reflecting the specificity of the border region in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.114-128
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• 2019

This study is a spatial analysis of the boundaries related to the division of the Korean peninsula. The boundary space was extracted by extracting $38^{th}$ parallel and digitizing the map of the Armistice Agreement Annex. The purpose of this analysis was to extract more accurate scope based on the armistice agreement, the appendices, and the UNC regulations and to analyze the wrong information correctly. The range of demilitarized zones was determined by UNC 551-4(2014) and UNC 551-5(2015) to ensure that there is no change in the location of the Southern Limit Line. It also confirmed that the MACHA was excluded in the DMZ. As a result, the area of the DMZ was measured at $889.7km^2$. Also this study identified the interval and number of markers in the MDL and the Han River estuary. It could be confirmed that the interval of markers within the MDL depends on the subject of management. This study is more accurate from the start and can be used as basic data needed in the study and education of DMZ and border areas after verification by public organizations.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.113-126
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• 2021

This study was conducted to analyze the forest status and deforestation area changes of the DMZ region in North Korea based on satellite images. Using growing and non-growing season's RapidEye satellite images, land cover of the North Korean DMZ was classified into stocking land(conifer, deciduous, mixed), deforested land(unstocked mountain, cultivated mountain, bare mountain), and non-forest areas. Deforestation rates in the Yeonan-baecheon, Beopdong-Pyeonggang, Heoyang-Geumgang and Tongcheon-Goseong district were calculated as 14.24%, 16.75%, 5.98%, and 16.63% respectively. Forest fire and land use change of forest were considered as the main causes of deforestation of DMZ. Changes in deforestation area were analyzed through Google Earth images. As a results, it was shown that the area of deforestation was on a decreasing trend. This study can be used as basic data for establishing inter-Korean border region's forest cooperation strategies by providing forest spatial information on the North Korea's DMZ.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.46-60
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• 2023

This study examines the appropriateness of indicators and methodologies through the evaluation of cultural services in border areas and uses them as basic data for the ecosystem service-based management of border areas, which are key domestic ecological assets. Accordingly, in this study, seven border cities and counties were evaluated and compared based on the evaluation indicators and methods presented by the National Institute of Ecology. As a result of the cultural service evaluation, it was found that Paju City was superior in leisure and tourism, Inje-gun was best in scenic beauty and heritage, and Yanggu-gun was strongest in education, and Inje-gun in heritage. Accordingly, through this study, future tasks for comprehensive cultural service evaluation were presented as follows. First, in order to evaluate ecosystem services at the national and regional levels, it is necessary to establish an indicator system for cultural service evaluation and monitoring. Second, when building a cultural service evaluation index system, it is necessary to review upper and lower conceptual units and the consistency between indicators according to the scale of the evaluation region. Third, a specific review of DB utilization for cultural service evaluation should be conducted depending on the type of ecosystem. Lastly, given the significant lack of domestic cultural service research, additional basic research must be conducted to evaluate cultural services including non-material and qualitative perceptions. In order to evaluate cultural services in the future, additional basic research is needed for each ecosystem type, and a process of finding appropriate evaluation indicators and methods through research is necessary.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.713-737
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• 2016

This study is to review research issues on North Korea and unified territory in terms of topics and approach method in Korean human geography. The conclusion of this paper is as follows. Before 1980's, topics on political geography, such as geopolitics or unified land, were the main stream in research. In 1990's with the end of the cold war and the access to material which was published in North Korea, scope of research was widened especially in geography education. After 2000's with the expansion of cooperation between South and North Korea, the scope of topics were more expanded in all field of human geography, for example, critical geopolitic in political geography, Gaeseong Industrial Complex, Najin-Seonbong region in economic geography, place names, Geumgangsan, North Korean defectors in social and cultural geography. The approach method of toward North Korea is fall into two categories. One is regional geography and the other is the unified land. In the latter approach, topics on the regional structure after reunification or on the life adaptation of defectors in South Korea etc. were studied. After unification of land, new Korean Studiea will be established and human geographers should make ready for this. Before unification, research on the land in north Korea should be proceeded in terms of historical geography.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.334-343
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• 2014

The number of malaria cases has been undulating for the past 10 years in Korea since the reemergence of malaria in early 1990's. Considering the spatial variations of malaria incidence across the northmost border areas near the demilitarized zone (DMZ), the occurrence of the disease seems to be influenced by the natural and human environment in the region. Malaria is an infectious disease that is transmitted to humans by the bites of vector-mosquitoes that carry malaria parasites, and its incidence rate depends on specific climatic and sociodemographic factors. This study found that the spatial characteristics of malaria incidence have varied depending on relative proportions of mosquito habitats, distance between mosquito habitats and human residence, the physical and sociodemographic environments of the city by urbanization, and local topography.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.57-75
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• 2019

Soundscapes have the potential to help people experience the historical background and cultural traditions by the scenery of a local area and to be used as a cultural and tourism resource. This concept was first explained in detail by M. Schafer and has been developed as a new way of experiencing landscapes using various senses. This research studied the soundscape of Kyodong Island, the so-called "Island of Peace" and designed new cultural acoustic content for education and tourism. Kyodong Island is located right below the Northern Limit Line and the whole island is in the Civilian Controlled Area. The political and economic status of the island has been changed dynamically by the Korean War and the division of the country. These days, the island needs to realize the vision of the "Island of Peace" in a more creative way using local resources, including its "cold war landscape" and the natural scenery of the region. This research applied the concept of a soundscape to document the island, and to reproduce it in an artistic way. A workshop was conducted to learn concepts and techniques of soundscapes with a sound artist. Listening, recording, conducting interviews, and literature research was used to study the soundscape of the island. After that, this research reconstructed the soundscape of the island through a soundscape composition. The main theme of the composition story was the "Hope and Wish for the Harmony and Peace" to show the vision of the "Island of Peace". The initial sub-theme for the introduction part was "First Encounter with Kyodong Island" arranging the representative soundscape, which could be the first impression of the region. The second sub-theme was "War and Tension" using several soundscapes as a metaphor for the tragedy of the Korean War. The third sub-theme was "Everyday Life of Kyodong Island" which described the energy of the present day, after the wounds of the war have healed. The final sub-theme was "Harmony and Peace" using traditional music and keynote sounds of the region as a reminder of the peaceful past, before the war. The recording files were documented as two types of sound maps. One was a two-dimensional map to show the soundscapes from one point of view, and the other used the online application called "Sound Around You". The final artwork was displayed at an exhibition and uploaded on YouTube to be shared publicly. Through this project, we discovered the potential of soundscapes as a medium to preserve the history and local identity, as well as presenting a new vision. The artwork will be exhibited at historically and culturally meaningful places on the Island to utilize the underused places as local tourist attractions and educational resources.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.469-477
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• 2018

Hanabusaya asiatica is an endemic species whose distribution is limited in the mid-eastern part of the Korean peninsula. Due to its narrow range and small population, it is necessary to protect its habitats by identifying it as Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) adopted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In this paper, we estimated potential natural habitats for H. asiatica using maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) and identified candidate sites for KBA based on the model results. MaxEnt is a machine learning algorithm that can predict habitats for species of interest unbiasedly with presence-only data. This property is particularly useful for the study area where data collection via a field survey is unavailable. We trained MaxEnt using 38 locations of H. asiatica and 11 environmental variables that measured climate, topography, and vegetation status of the study area which encompassed all locations of the border region between South and North Korea. Results showed that the potential habitats where the occurrence probabilities of H. asiatica exceeded 0.5 were $778km^2$, and the KBA candidate area identified by taking into account existing protected areas was $1,321km^2$. Of 11 environmental variables, elevation, annual average precipitation, average precipitation in growing seasons, and the average temperature in the coldest month had impacts on habitat selection, indicating that H. asiatica prefers cool regions at a relatively high elevation. These results can be used not only for identifying KBAs but also for the reference to a protection plan for H. asiatica in preparation of Korean reunification and climate change.