• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.73-85
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• 2005

Natural disturbance and environmental pressure on natural ecosystems are gradually increasing, and the cause is significantly related to large-scale environmental pollution, global warming, decreasing biodiversity and habitat fragmentation. Environmental impact assessment(EIA) in Korea has been focused on distribution and composition of fauna and flora as major evaluation aspects in ecosystem assessment. It is well known that those characteristics of flora and fauna strongly depend on characteristics and quality of habitat and ecosystem. However, there is no items to assess habitat and ecosystems of spatial ecological system in EIA. Many countries are trying to develop the EIA items to consider the spatial characteristics of habitat and ecosystem and those ecological dynamics as well as species level. In this stream, landscape ecology is emerging discipline to examine spatial pattern and ecological process within/between habitats and ecosystems. Landscape ecological analysis, as a special tool for ecosystem evaluation, has been appropriately adopted to the EIA system in the advanced countries. This review paper tries to introducing the possibilities of landscape ecological concept into the Korean EIA system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.15-28
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• 2020

Urbanization and industrialization have caused increasing damage to national lands, and ecological restoration has proceeded without any specific assessment of this damage. The purpose of this study is to select indices to assess damaged areas through literature review and panel discussions, and to derive the importance of damaged area assessment indices by analyzing them through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). This study has derived, via literature review, six types of damage and a total of 18 related assessment indices. A total of 51 responses were collected from surveys and given to experts, and an AHP analysis conducted. As a result of the analysis, "Landform change (0.268)" was of the highest importance, with associated damage types as follows: "Soil contamination (0.193)", "Vegetation damaged (0.149)", "Surface soil loss (0.143)", "Change in soil physiochemical property (0.125)", and "Vegetation decline (0.122)". The analysis determined that the item of the highest importance in the overall assessment of damage was "Slope occurred area (0.100)", and that "Conductivity (0.022)" was of the lowest importance. This study can be presented as a criterion in determining the type and degree of damage in setting priorities for future ecological restoration projects.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.59-68
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• 2007

Urban streams have been severely degraded with wastewater and concrete structure over a prolonged period. The Chonggyecheon Restoration Project recovered a stream in the downtown Seoul with landscaping, plantings and bridges after the cover concrete and elevated asphalt road were removed. The project has been criticized partly because it is not an ecological restoration but rather the development of an urban park with an unnaturally straight flowing stream, artificial building structures, and artificial water pumping from the Han River. Nevertheless, the public have praised the project and almost 100,000 visitors per day come to see the reeds, catfish, and ducks. The stream restoration project is attractive to central and regional government decision makers because it increases the public concern of landscape amenity. Several projects such as Sanjichon and Kaeumjungchon are on going and proposed. These projects have a common and different respect in scope and procedure. The Chonggyecheon project in the process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) and prior environmental review system (PERS) reviewed the environmental impacts before development. Kaeumjungchon in the PERS and Sanjichon without EIA and PERS are reviewed. EIA and PERS systems contribute to checking the ecological sustainability of the restoration projects. A stream restoration project is a very complex task, so an integrated approach from plan to project is needed for ecologically sound restoration. Ecological stream restoration requires 1) an assessment of the entire stream ecosystem 2) establishing an ecologically sound management system of the stream reflecting not only benefits for people but also flora and fauna; 3) developing the site-specific design criteria and construction techniques including habitat restoration, flood plains conservation, and fluvial management; 4) considering the stream watershed in land use plan, EIA, PERS, and strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Additionally the process needs to develop the methodologies to enhance stakeholder's participation during planning, construction, and monitoring.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.103-112
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• 1997

The object of this study is the introduction and the application of Ecological Footprint(EF) for sustainability of regional people activities. It is a tool for the evaluation of specific projects through various lifestyles or consumption to area of broad policy and budgets. But in Korea there is no assessment for consumption level of human activities by EF. Therefore this study try to analyse ecologically productive land for human activities of Cheju-island in order to assess the sustainability in Cheju and compares with another industrized countries. We analyze the human activities level of Cheju-island then the EF is about 0.9(ha/cap). This value is not more than another countries like Canada and United States. EF assists in choosing technologies, policies and Life Cycle Assessment(LCA) which can perform a certain task with the smallest ecological footprint. It will help society to avoid collapse and move towards sustainability and ecological efficiency.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.165-176
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• 2012

The objective of this study is to set urban ecosystem assessment indicators, assess the status of the urban ecosystems in 31 cities & counties in the capital region and based on which, to examine an improvement plan to resolve problems and raise quality and quantity of urban ecosystems. The study showed that the ecological base of 31 cities & counties was 48% on average, which indicates that their ecological property is the middle class. Their natural-ecological function was 63% and environmental-control function was 25%, showing that environment-control function was poor. Therefore, going forward, urban ecological base should be further improved. When securing an ecological base, creation techniques should be able to further enhance environmental-control function along with natural-ecological function. Also, additional effort should be made to conserve areas with high ecological value as much as possible and increase vegetation vitality by replacing tree species.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.334-343
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• 2023

Background: South Korea's Act on Registration and Evaluation, etc. of Chemicals (known as K-REACH) was established to protect public health and the environment from hazardous chemicals. 4,4'-Methylenedianiline (MDA), which is used as a major intermediate in industrial polymer production and as a vulcanizing agent in South Korea, is classified as a toxic substance under the K-REACH act. Although MDA poses potential ecological risks due to industrial emissions and hazards to aquatic ecosystems, no ecological risk assessment has been conducted. Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the ecological risk of MDA by identifying the actual exposure status based on the K-REACH act. Methods: Various toxicity data were collected to establish predicted no effect concentrations (PNECs) for water, sediment, and soil. Using the SimpleBox Korea v2.0 model with domestic release statistical data and EU emission factors, predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) were derived for ten sites, each referring to an MDA-using company. Hazard quotient (HQ) was calculated by ratio of the PECs and PNECs to characterize the ecological risk posed by MDA. To validate the results of modeling-based assessment, concentration of MDA was measured using in-site freshwater samples (two to three samples per site). Results: PNECs for water, sediment, and soil were 0.000525 mg/L, 4.36 mg/kg dw, and 0.1 mg/kg dw, respectively. HQ for surface water and sediment at several company sites exceeded 1 due to modeling data showing markedly high PEC in each environmental compartment. However, in the results of validation using in-site surface water samples, MDA was not detected. Conclusions: Through an ecological risk assessment conducted in accordance with the K-REACH act, the risk level of MDA emitted into the environmental compartments in South Korea was found to be low.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.212-220
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• 2018

Ecological and ecosystem database is becoming very necessary to understand origins and relationship between human and nature and also to minimize disturbance caused by human activities. An ecological information portal can play important roles as a computing system to collect knowledge, distributed research findings and separated data from researchers. In this study, we designed and developed ecological information portal service (EcoBank 1.0) for collecting and providing ecological information for diverse classes of stakeholders. To reach the goal, we had reviewed related and comparable ecological database portals to design conceptual structure of EcoBank system including database management framework. Then, we developed some functions of ecosystem analysis for each stake-holders (researchers, general public and policy makers). As a result of this study, we successfully designed of EcoBank system covering the functions of Digital Object Identifier(DOI) publishing and data quality management process. Also, we (1) applied ecological indices for calculating biodiversity by administrative boundary for policy makers, (2) provided statistical information of econature map for general public and distribution characteristics of species for researchers. To make a successful establishment of EcoBank, we have to collect and build up related database and offer various and reliable ecological data consistently. We expect that the successful construction of EcoBank will help not only to accomplish sustainable development goals but also to raise the welfare of ecosystem in Korea.

• 한국지형공간정보학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.08a
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• pp.21-25
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• 2005

A GIS application for assessment of carrying capacity for national parks was developed and presented in this study. Three criteria--ecological factors, facilities, and institutions--were employed as determining factors for assessing the carrying capacity. Using the GIS-based approach, the site-specific carrying capacity for the Chi-Ri National Park was assessed and a carrying capacity map was prepared. This carrying capacity map can be helpful in making policies for decentralizing visitors and keeping the park environmentally stable.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.49-65
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• 2021

Although the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is continuously being advanced, the number of environmental disputes regarding it is still on the rise. In order to supplement this, it is necessary to analyze the accumulated complaint cases. In this study, through the analysis of complaint cases, it is possible to identify matters that need to be improved in the existing EIA stages as well as various damages and conflicts that were not previously considered or predicted. In the process, we dervied 'complaint-based data demands' that should be additionally examined to improve the EIA. To this end, a total of 348 news articles were collected by searching with combinations of 'environmental impact assessment' and a keyword for each of the six assessment groups. As a result of analysis of collected data, a total of 54 complaint-based data demands were suggested. Among those were 15 items including 'impact of changes in seawater flow on water quality' in the category of water environment; 13 items including 'area of green buffer zone' in atmospheric environment; 10 items including 'impact of soundproof wall on wind corridor' in living environment; 8 items including 'expected number of users' in socioeconomic environment, 4 items including 'feasibility assessment of development site in terms of environmental and ecological aspects' in natural ecological environment; and 4 items including 'prediction of sediment runoff and damaged areas according to the increase in intensity and frequency of torrential rain' in land environment. In future research, more systematic complaint collection and analysis as well as specific provision methods regarding stages, subjects, and forms of use should be sought to apply the derived data demands in the actual EIA process. It is expected that this study can serve to advance the prediction and assessment of EIA in the future and to minimize environmental impact as well as social conflict in advance.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture International Edition
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• no.2
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• pp.9-13
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• 2004

After UNECD(United Nations Conference of Environment and Development) in 1992, ESSD (Environmental Sound and Sustainable Development) is an important concept of urban planning in Korea. The introducing environmental assessment system of urban planning and the district unit planning system were representative cases. In this process, Landchaftplanung(ecological landscape planning) was introduced from Germany. This study was executed for applying ecological landscape planning to Eunpyung New Town in Seoul city, and analyzing the problem to apply this system. The process of ecological landscape planning was followed to (1) the site survey, (2) the analysis and assessment of survey data, (3) the establishing ecological landscape planning. Three master architects participated in all investigations. The major fields of them were landscape architecture, architecture, and urban planning. Master Architects helped many aspects. In conclusion, ecological landscape planning was feasible to be applied to develop other New Town in Korea. However the mediation system is very weak, if different situations are confronted with ecological landscape plan and land use plan in the operative legal framework of Korea. Thus, the legislation of mediation system is necessary for an establishment of ecological landscape planning.