• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.43-49
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• 2024

Ecological monitoring provides indispensable data for biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource management. However, the complexity and variability inherent in ecological monitoring data necessitate robust verification processes to ensure data integrity. This study employed Benford's Law, a statistical principle traditionally used in fields such as finance and health sciences, to evaluate the authenticity of ecological monitoring data related to the abundance of migratory bird species across various locations in South Korea. Benford's Law anticipates a specific logarithmic distribution of leading digits in naturally occurring numerical datasets. Our investigation involved two stages of analysis: a first-order analysis considering the leading digit and a second-order analysis examining the first two digits of bird population counts. While the first-order analysis displayed moderate conformity to Benford's Law that suggested overall data integrity, the second-order analysis revealed more pronounced deviations, indicating potential inconsistencies or inaccuracies in certain subsets of the data. Although our data did not perfectly align with Benford's Law, these deviations underscore the complex nature of ecological research, which is influenced by a multitude of environmental, methodological, and human factors.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.796-804
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• 2006

The objective of this research was to develop ecological multi-metric models using natural fish assemblages for a diagnosis of current stream health condition, and apply the model to nationwide lotic ecosystems of the Geum River, the Youngsan River, and the Sumjin River. The ecological stream health model was based on the index of biological integrity (IBI), which was originally developed in North American streams by Karr (1981), and the Rapid Bioassessment Protocol (RBP), which was scientifically established by the US EPA (1999). The metric numbers and metric attributes were partially changed for the regional applications, so the scoring criteria was modified for the assessment. Overall, metric values, based on the IBI calculations, reflected conventional water quality characteristics, based on nutrient regime, and agreed with results of staticeco-toxicity tests. Some stations impaired in terms of stream health were identified by the IBI approach, and also major key stressors affecting the stream health were identified by additional evaluations of physical habitats. Our preliminary results suggested that biological integrity in stream ecosystems was largely disturbed by habitat degradation as well as chemical pollutions. This new approach would be used as a key tool for ecological restorations and species conservations in the degraded aquatic ecosystems in Korea and applied for elucidating major causes of ecological disturbances. Ultimately, this approach provides us an effective management strategy of stream ecosystems through establishments of ecological networks in various watersheds.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.243-257
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• 2024

Although lakes are an important part of freshwater, research on biological methods for assessing ecological integrity of Korean lakes is insufficient. Therefore, this study aimed to develop Lakes Benthic Macroinvertebrates Multi-Metric Index (LBMMI) to assess the ecological integrity of lakes in Korea to further understand Korean lake's ecosystem. We used biological data from 388 sampling units of national lake monitoring programs from 2022 to 2023 and water quality data from Water Environment Information System (WEIS). As a result, firstly, reference points and disturbed points were selected through Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Secondly, six core metric elements (Pielou's Evenness index (J), Total number of taxa (To.t), Percent of taxa in insecta (% I.t), Percent of individuals in Oligochaeta and chironomidae(tuble) (% OliCht.i), Percent of taxa in Predator (% Pe.t), and Percent of taxa in Clingers (% CL.t) were selected through discriminant analysis and relationship-test. Lastly, LBMMI was calculated for each sampling point by scoring using core metric elements and five grades were assigned for LBMMI scores using a Beta probability distribution model, with the suitability of LBMMI reviewed by comparing it with TSI_KO. LBMMI developed in this study is expected to appropriately assess ecological integrity of Korean lakes and provide a basis for further research on lake environment conservation.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.25-45
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• 2015

The government has implemented the projects of restoring the ecological integrity of streams to improve its water quality and provide resting places with local residents. Because the projects require huge public investments, their economic feasibility should be investigated through ex-post examination of their benefits. This study attempts to analyze the economic feasibility of restoring the ecological integrity using specific cases of Namyang stream in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi and Yugu stream in Gongju, Chungnam. The contingent valuation (CV) method is employed to measure the benefits. To this end, a professional polling firm conducted two CV surveys of 210 and 209 households for Hwaseong and Gongju, respectively. The willingness to pay (WTP) model used in the study is based on utility difference approach and the single-bounded dichotomous choice spike model. The results reveal that the WTP for restoring ecological integrity of the Namyang and Yugu streams are estimated to be 3,140 and 10,121 won per household per year. Interestingly, the latter is about three times greater than the former. The quantitative information can be used in economic feasibility analysis of the projects of restoring the ecological integrity of the Namyang and Yugu streams.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Environmental Biology Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.69-69
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• 2002

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.442-448
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• 2007

This study was carried out to assess the improved aspects of ecological conditions in a small stream, where eco-technological restorations such as gabion-crib mattress arrangement and soil-arresting wicker fence work had already been made up to stabilize the physically and ecologically damaged streambank. Six metrics by diatoms including species richness, Shannon diversity, saprobic index by DAIpo, percent sensitive diatoms, percent of Achnanthes minutissima, dominant index were analysed to assess the ecological integrity of small stream. By generalizing the changed values of six metrics on the stream flow from upper point(ST.1) to lower point(ST.3), it was found that the effect value of ecological condition improvement went up to as much as 33.9% on the average. The results suggested that eco-technological restoration treatment applied to this study is considerably effective for preserving the ecological integrity of small stream.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.107-119
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• 2016

Background: Previous studies on the biological integrity on habitat and landuse patterns demonstrated ecological stream health in the view of regional or macrohabitat scale, thus ignored the mesoscale habitat patterns of pool, riffle, and runs in the stream health analysis. The objective of this study was to analyze influences on the mesohabitat structures of pool, riffle, and run reaches on the fish guilds and biological integrity in Geum-River Watershed. Results: The mesohabitat structures of pool, riffle, and run reaches influenced the ecological stream health along with some close relations on the fish trophic and tolerance guilds. The mesoscale components altered chemical water quality such as nutrients (TN, TP) and BOD and these, then, determined the primary productions, based on the sestonic chlorophyll-a. The riffle-reach had good chemical conditions, but the pool-reach had nutrient enrichments. The riffle-reach had a predominance of insectivores, while the pool-reach has a predominance of omnivores. Also, the riffle-reach had high proportions of sensitive fish and insectivore fish, and the pool-reach had high proportions of tolerant species in the community composition. The intermediate fish species in tolerance and omnivorous fish species in the food linkage dominated the community in the watershed, and the sensitive and insectivorous fishes decreased rapidly with a degradation of the water quality. All the habitat patterns were largely determined by the land-use patterns in the watershed. Conclusions: Trophic guilds and tolerance guilds of fish were determined by land-use pattern and these determined the stream health, based on the Index of Biological Integrity. This study remarks the necessity to include additional variables to consider information provided by mesohabitats and land-use distributions within the selected stream stretch. Overall, our data suggest that land-use pattern and mesohabitat distribution are important factors to be considered for the trophic and tolerance fish compositions and chemical gradients as well as ecological stream health in the watershed.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.24-34
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• 2010

This study was carried out to analyze some influences on ecological health conditions, threaten by various stressors such as physical, chemical and biological parameters. We collected samples in 2008 from three zones of upstream, midstream and downstream, Gap Stream. We applied multi-metric fish assessment index (MFAI), based on biotic integrity model to the three zones along with habitat evaluations based on Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index (QHEI). We also examined fish fauna and compositions, and analyzed relations with MFAI values, QHEI values, and various guild types. Chemical parameters such as oragnic matter (BOD, COD), nutrients (TP, $NH_3$-N), coli-form number (as MPN), and suspended solids (SS) were analyzed to identify the relationship among multiple stressor effects. Using the sentinel species of Zacco platypus, the population structures and condition factors were analyzed along with DNA damages related with genotoxicant effects by comet assay. This study using all these parameters showed that stream condition was degraded along the longitudinal gradient from upstream to downstream, and the downstream, especially, was impacted by nutrient enrichment and toxicant exposure from the point source, wastewater treatment plant. Overall results indicated that our approaches applying various parameters may be used as a cause-effect technique in the stream health assessments and also used as a pre-warning tool for diagnosis of ecological degradation.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2010

This study aims at exploring the characteristics of the Usonian houses of Frank Lloyd Wright from an ecological viewpoint. After considering the definition and application of ecological architecture through literature review, 28 Usonian houses were selected and analyzed for the study. Also, nine Usonian houses, which clearly have ecological and historical importance, were visited and more thoroughly analyzed. The result shows that Usonian houses are ecological in terms of 1) the relationship among nature, landscape and house, 2) the orientation, natural light and natural ventilation, 3) the use of natural local materials including wood, stones and bricks, 4) the use of floor heating (the On-dol system inKorea), 5) the human scale, 6) the use of the board and batten unit (an early system of prefabrication), and 7) the openness and flexibility of floor plans.

• Architectural research
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.29-37
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• 2021

Early in the communist era, many cities in modern China experienced a special period of passive industrialization during which the construction of urban spaces laid the spatial urban foundation. During this period, the city construction was carried out rapidly under the administrative intervention of the government. The passive industrialization caused by taking economic construction as the center made the city construction deviate from the correct track and resulted in a variety of problems. Focusing on ecological space change, this paper selects Zhengzhou as an example of many similar cities in China, and analyzes the impact of passive industrialization on urban ecological spaces from the perspectives of city scale, city layout and city construction management system. The analysis results reveal that the construction of urban ecological space under the influence of passive industrialization induced a lagging characteristic, led to insufficient integrity of urban ecological space, and placed great pressure on the urban environment. Finally, the paper puts forward some methods to optimize the urban ecological space.