• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.349-357
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• 2004

Emergy is a measure of the processes required to produce something expressed in units of the same energy form. Emergy based indices can provide insights into the thermodynamic efficiency of the process, the quality of its output, and the interaction between the process and its surrounding environment. However, in an industrial system, the inputs are mostly nonrenewable, renewable energy source is nearly zero, ultimate purpose is pursuit of profits in economic activity. In study, we present two indices based on emergy - EEE(Ecological Economic Efficiency) and ERI(Environmental Responsibility Index). The EEE is taken into account real value of product in market economy. The ERI is shown to be a function of the net yield of the economy, its ‘load’ on the environment and ecological economic efficiency. Manufacturing industry of Korea produced the 30% of total GDP in 2001. We applied these indices to manufacturing industry for environmental management and further sustainable industry. As a results, the highest ERI is 0.34 in recycling industries, the lowest ERI is 0.01 in coke, refined petroleum products which is dominated by ELR. The higher ERI, the more friendly to environment. The suggested indices help us understand relative contributions of various alternatives in company's production and consumption activity, and provide a tool of decision-making for the rearrangement of future industries. Furthermore, they contribute to environmental friendly operation and consumption.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.473-480
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• 2005

The cost of the construction and management of new apartment buildings was evaluated using a monetary analysis and an emergy concept to provide a new perspective regarding the housing policy of Korea. The systems of analyses were typical apartment buildings with an area of $76.03m^2$ per household in Korea built on the same size of land area. Three apartment buildings with different stories were evaluated and compared; 5-story, 15-story, and 20-story apartment buildings. The durable years of those apartments were assumed to be 40 years. The total cost of the construction and management of an apartment building was divided into three categories of construction, land purchase, and management. A 20-story apartment showed the highest cost and a 15-story apartment the lowest in the monetary cost analysis. In contrast, the emergy evaluation revealed a different pattern in the cost of construction and management, the cost increasing from a 5-story apartment to a 20-story one. This means that the higher the apartment constructed, the greater the cost in terms of real wealth. This result suggests that new evaluation methodologies like the emergy analysis should be used together with the monetary analysis to provide better insights on the national housing policy.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.73-83
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• 2004

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.85-90
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• 2001

The conflicts between environment protection and economic development are becoming increasingly important in environmental decision making of Nakdong River Basin. A science-based evaluation system is now needed to represent both the environmental values and the economic values with a common measure. EMERGY, spelled with an \"m\" evaluates both the work of river and that of human in generating products and services. The monetary cost-benefit analysis and the environmental accounting by EMERGY analysis were applied to determine whether there will have a net benefit in environmental decision making of Nakdong River Basin. Based on the results of the environmental accounting, all alternatives which related to environmental decision making of Nakdong River Basin show that more and more of EMERGY cost becomes needed than the a EMERGY benefit from getting water to drink in the lower basin. From these results, for selecting alternatives to manage water quantity and quality that is sustainable in the environmental use and economic development, environmental accounting concepts must be considered, and the economic structure of Nakdong River Basin should be changed from the present industrial structure to social-economic based on ecological-recycling concept for the sustainable use of Nakdong River.ong River.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.841-856
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• 2008

This research outlines a new method for evaluation of shellfish production in Gamak Bay based on the concept of EMERGY. Better understanding of those environmental factors influencing oyster production and the management of oyster stocks requires the ability to assess the real value of environmental sources such as solar energy, river, tide, wave, wind, and other physical mechanisms. In this research, EMERGY flows from environment sources were 76% for shellfish aquaculture in Gamak Bay. EMERGY yield ratio, Environmental Loading Ratio, and Sustainability Index were 4.26, 0.31 and 13.89, respectively. Using the Emergy evaluation data, the predicted maximum shellfish aquaculture production in Gamak Bay and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration, U.S.) designated area in Gamak Bay were 10,845 ton/y and 7,548 ton/yr, respectively. Since the predicted shellfish production was approximately 1.3 times more than produced shellfish production in 2005, the carrying capacity of Gamak Bay is estimated to be 1.3 times more than the present oyster production.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.591-597
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• 2013

The input emergy of an advanced treatment plant for reducing the 1 kg of TN and TP was estimated 4.14E+14 sej/kg, 5.02E+15 sej/kg, respectively. In addition, the input emergy of constructed wetland for reduction of the 1 kg of TN and TP reduction was estimated to be 2.48E+14 sej/kg, 3.38E+15 sej/kg, respectively. The cost reducing 1 kg of TN and TP for an advanced treatment plant was estimated 197,466 won and 2,388,739 won respectively and constructed wetland was estimated 117,976 won and 1,609,213 won respectively. As a result, All of the emergy source of constructed wetland for reducing non-point source is renewable resource. If we use the constructed wetland, it results in enhancing economic value by reducing of non-point pollution, controlling a flood and providing the habitat of animals or plants. Improving water quality program in the Nakdong River Basin should be changed into an ecological treatment facilities from expansion of the sewage treatment facilities and advanced treatment plant using high cost and non-renewable energies.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.305-314
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• 2008

As forest land takes up 65% of the Korean peninsula, there have been continuing conflicts between the development and conservation of forest land. As the income level has changed over time, the usage of forest land in society has changed. There has been increasing demands for forest land for urban development and recreational use. On the other hand, a large proportion of the land is required to be preserved for the forest and the natural ecosystem in it. The existing management system for the forest land has been designed focusing on the management of the trees on the land, and not the land itself. Due to this limitation, the current management system of forest land has failed to protect the forest land from being developed indiscreetly, making it difficult to conserve and develop the forest land in an efficient way. A major question in forest land management is how to integrate economic use activities with the supporting ecosystems to maximize performance of the ecological-economic system. In order to promote sustainable use of forest resources, and to achieve efficient forest land management, it is prerequisite to evaluation on forest resources of natural ecosystems. Quantitative measures are needed that signify how necessary the services and products of forested ecosystems are to human endeavors. In this study, the natural wealth provided by forest land was quantified based on emergy synthesis. Emergy is a universal measure of real wealth of the work of nature and society made on a common basis. Thus, Calculations of emergy provide a basis for making choices about environment and economy following the general public policy to maximize real wealth. The goals of forest land management to achieve balance between the ecology and economy of its integrated system and to foster equity among the diverse outcomes of the forest land were assessed with emergy. Emergy was demonstrated to holistically integrated and quantify the interconnections of a coupled nature-human system allowing the goals of ecological balance and outcome equity to be measured quantitatively. Doing so will provide a better understanding of the basis of forest land wealth and the consequences of management decisions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.135-143
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• 2008

An emergy concept was used to evaluate the environment and economy of the estuarine areas of Yeongsan River, Seomjin River, and Han River in Korea. The emergy evaluations clearly showed ecological and socioeconomic characteristics of the estuarine areas that act as ecological and economic centers of surrounding areas. River, tide, and rain provided most of the renewable emergy inputs to the estuarine areas with their contribution to the total emergy input less than 8%. The estuarine areas mostly relied for their operation on the purchased emergy which accounted for $92{\sim}98%$ of the total emergy input to the systems. Emergy indices such as emergy use per unit area, population carrying capacity, environmental loading ratio, and emergy sustainability index revealed that the estuarine areas of Yeongsan River, Seomjin River, and Han River are not sustainable at the current level of economic activities in the areas. The ecological economic values of the environment of the areas were in the range of $7.29{\sim}22.06$ million Em\/ha/yr. They are more than twice that for the whole country, indicating the ecological and economic importance of the eatuarine areas. It is, therefore, urgent to establish and implement estuarine management policies to protect and restore the ecological and economic potentials of the estuarine areas of Yeongsan River, Seomjin River, and Han River. Management plans for the estuarine areas should include both demand-side measures such as reduction of population and economic concentration and consideration of ecological carrying capacity in planning stages for utilization and development of the areas, and supply-side ones such as restoration of degraded ecosystems and construction of new productive ecosystems.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2016

This study was conducted laying the focus on finding the mutual action between the substantial ecological value and economic system in the national land, and calculating the environmental carrying capacity and sustainability of the national land using the emergy synthesis. Particularly, this study pays attention watchfully to the reality that the analytic framework to analyze sustainability is not arranged well, as the concept of sustainable development considering environmental carrying capacity, which becomes a widely discussed topic today, is defined differently according to the subjective views of respective researchers, and the situation which needs in-depth evaluation on the interaction between nature and economy which becomes the fundamental of sustainable development. This study also aims at groping for correct direction for the national land development by calculating the environmental carrying capacity and index value which is appropriate to the national land and providing the framework for preparing the policy to induce the sustainable use and management of the national land. The concept of emergy synthesis which is used for the evaluation of environmental carrying capacity and sustainability in the national land, as in this case, can notify the information on current situation of the national land as well as explain how the national land transforms according to time pass (the role of information synthesis), and gives knowledge if the national land policies advances toward the direction of sustainable development (the role of policy evaluation and observation). Emergy synthesis also can take role for selecting best policy on the process of decision making on the exploitation of the national land (the role on the process of decision making).

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Sciences Society Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.289-291
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• 2007

본 연구의 대상해역은 여수반도 남단에 위치한 가막만은 굴을 비롯한 패류양식 생산활동에 기여하는 자연환경의 실질적인 가치와 인간경제 시스템에 대한 EMERGY 분석법으로 평가하고자 한다. 이를 기초로 넙치생산의 지속적인 발전방향을 제시하고자 했다. 2004년 통계를 기준으로 가막만 양식에 유입되는 총 EMERGY의 양은 33.42E+19 sej/yr이고, 이 중 자연환경으로부터 영속성 에너지는 2.95E+20 sej/yr 이며, 주 경제로부터 유입되는 비영속성 에너지는 3.92E+19 sej/yr이다. 자연환경으로부터의 유입이 전체 에너지원의 88%이고, 주 경제로부터의 유입은 12%로서 환경자원에 대한 의존도가 높은 1차 산업의 구조적 특징을 나타내고 있다. Net EMERTY yield ratio는 8.52으로 이는 주 경제로부터 투입된 에너지(비영속성 에너지)에 대해 8배 만큼 수산물을 얻을 수 있는 자원으로서의 가치를 가진다. EMERGY Investment Ratio 0.13은 주 경제로부터 유입된 에너지의 약 7배에 해당하는 에너지를 자연환경에서 얻을 수 있음을 의미한다. EMERGY량이 모두 현재의 EMERGY 생산비대로 생산이 된다는 가정하면 가막만의 패류(굴) 생산량은 환경수용량의 50%정도에도 못 미치는 것으로 나타났다.