• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.307-327
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• 2017

Ecological efficiency is an important index measuring and reflecting the sustainable development level of economy, resources and environment in a region. This paper makes an empirical study on the ecological efficiency of 31 provinces in China in 2014 with the three-stage DEA model. The results show that the three indexes, the total investment in environmental governance (Unit: hundred million Yuan), the second industry proportion(%), and per capita automobile ownership (car/ten thousand people) functioning as the external environmental variables have significantly impacted the regional ecological efficiency. Excluding the impact of the external environment and statistical noise, the technical efficiency of regional ecological efficiency has increased from 0.526 to 0.639, and the pure technical efficiency has increased from 0.650 to 0.858, with the scale efficiency decreased from 0.833 to 0.740, accurately reflecting the regional ecological efficiency level. 31 Chinese provinces are classified into four different types according to the pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency. Every region shall, according to the characteristics of its efficiency, emphasize differently on improving the management level or expanding the scale of production so as to improve the ecological efficiency.

• Journal of KIBIM
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.32-41
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• 2019

As population in Sarasota and Manatee Counties, Florida in the United States is projected to increase, land use changes from land development happen continuously. The more land development means the more impervious surfaces and stormwater runoff to Sarasota Bay, which causes critical impact on the resiliency of the ecosystem. In order to decrease its impact on water quality and the ecosystem function of Sarasota Bay, it is important to assess the resilient status of communities that create negative impacts on the ecosystem. Three types of guiding principles of resiliency for Sarasota Bay watershed are suggested. To assess resiliency status, three indexes - vulnerability index, socio-economic index, and ecological index are developed and analyzed by using geographic information system for each census tract in the two counties. Since each indicator for vulnerability index, socio-economic index, and ecological index is measured with different metrics, statistical standardizing method - distance from the best and worst performers is used for this study to directly compare and combine them all to show total resilience score for each census tract. Also, the ten most and the ten least scores for the total resilience index scores are spatially distributed for better understanding which census tracts are most or least resilient. As Sarasota Watershed boundary is also overlaid, it is easy to understand how each census tract attains its resilience and how each census tract impacts to Sarasota Bay ecosystem. Based on results of the resiliency assessment several recommendations, guidelines, or policies for attaining or enhancing resiliency are suggested.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.516-527
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• 2009

We assessed fish fauna and habitat suitability indexes in the Geum river basin. Field monitoring was conducted for ecological and habitat condition assessment at 23 sites from October 2007 to March 2009. The habitat suitability indexes established for dominant fish species using the monitoring data were employed to assess riverine health conditions such as composition ratio of fish species, richness and dominance indexes, bio-diversity(dominance index, diversity, evenness and richness), and water depth, velocity and substrate size. Twenty-one species(42%) including Rhodeus uyekii and Pseudopungtungia nigra were found endemic out of the 50 species in 11 families sampled during this study period. The most frequently found one was Zacco platypus(34.3%) followed by Z. koreanus(10.2%) and Coreoleuciscus splendidus(8.4%). For Z. platypus, the dominant fish species in the basin, the favored habitat conditions were estimated to be 0.1~0.9 m for water depth, 0~0.9m/s for flow velocity and silt(<0.1mm)~cobbles(100.0~300.0mm) for substrate size, respectively. Overall, it was concluded that the Geum river basin has been relatively well protected from the anthropogenic disturbance for the legally protected species including the endemic species studied in this study.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.18 no.3 s.28
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• pp.75-90
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to analyze middle school students' consumption lifestyle and develop a program for measuring Ecological Footprint (EF) for them. For this study, 200 male and female middle school students in large cities, medium & small cities were selected to analyze their consumption lifestyle. It was also that the existing programs for measuring EF were studied and basic rules of setting up new EF indicators were established based on the results of survey and literature study. 15 indexes was selected by dividing the life areas into food, housing, traffic, goods and services areas and than the delpi computer programming tools was used to develop program for measuring EF in this study. The program for measuring EF can be used as educational materials for consumers' environment education in the areas of social environment education and school environment education. The followings are suggestions coming out of this study. First, it is required to revise and complement program for measuring EF analyzing the problems that occur when applying it to middle school students actually. Second, some data that used during normalization of EF ate originally from the USA. So it is necessary to change the data to meet the Korean situation. Third, it is necessary to have design work that can invite interests of students with consumers' environmental education materials through cooperation between environmental education experts and computer programmers. Fourth, it is necessary to have practical research with consumers' environmental education adding educational contents into EF measurement program. Fifth, it is necessary to develop a method for distribution an expansion of the program for measuring EF to make it usable in different types of environmental education materials.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.907-915
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• 2018

With the increase of metal usage in various industries, metal pollution and ecological toxicity in the environmental system have become a significant concern. A geo-statistical index has been widely used to determine contamination level with normalization through a background value. In this study, geo-statistical indexes such as an enrichment factor, accumulation index, and potential ecological risk index were used to assess metal pollution in soil at locations associated with shipbuilding manufacturing industries. Metal contamination, especially of Cu and Pb, was observed in some samples located closer to manufacturing sites. Enrichment factor and accumulation (IGEO) values were indicative of concerning levels of soil contamination in specific samples, and the soil contamination could be induced by anthropogenic sources. In further study, after more detailed sampling for soil and potential pollution sources, high interpretation techniques such as Pb isotope analysis and X-ray analysis will be needed to investigate source identification.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.73-92
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to establish the conservation and restoration areas for sustainable stream management by reflecting the ecological health, cultural characteristics, and the citizens' needs for stream uses. Therefore, we extended spatial ranges of stream evaluation to riparian areas in addition to stream sections. The evaluation indexes are stream naturalness, availability, biota assessment, and riparian characteristics such as land uses and legally protected areas. The grading system was unified with five classes. The spatial evaluation units for stream section are classified as right and left for laterally and 500m for longitudinally. For riparian areas, 30m and 100m of distance from the edge of stream are applied as spatial evaluation units. The six types of stream sections for management are conservation sections(priority/general) and restoration sections(priority/general) for ecological landscape and core and general sections for cultural landscape. The established system for evaluation and designating areas for stream management was applied to Jeonjucheon and Samcheon in Jeonju-si, and the conservation and restoration areas were designated reflecting the characteristics of urban and non-urban areas and left and right of stream sections. The results of this study will provide detailed guidelines for designating stream sections and practical management strategies for sustainable urban stream management.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.190-203
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• 2021

Water quality, benthic macroinvertebrate communities, and other factors were investigated to explore the effects of the effluent discharge from a sewage treatment plant into Jwagwang stream in Busan in 2019. During the study period, the flow rate of this stream was in the range of 10,400 m³/day to 52,200 m³/day except for the discharge of about 24,000 m³/day of the effluent. After discharge, the flow velocity increased by about 65% and the water depth increased by about 40%. At sites downstream of the discharge point, BOD, COD, TOC, T-N, T-P, and other water quality values were worse than those of the upstream sites. The periphytic algal chlorophyll-a concentrations in the natural substrata were higher than those of the upstream sites, especially in May and August. However, at sites downstream of the discharge point, the individual numbers of Annelida were decreased and individual numbers of the insecta of arthropoda were increased. Also, species numbers and the diversity and dominance indexes were improved in the sites downstream of the discharge point. The functional feeding groups (FFGs) of collector-filterers were increased and the habitat orientation groups (HOGs) of sprawlers, burrowers, and clingers were especially increased at the sites with additional reclaimed wastewater effluent flow. Regardless of the effluent discharge, BMI, an indicator of ecological stream health using benthic macroinvertebrate species, did not show large gaps between the study points. Although the water quality of the sites downstream of the discharge point was much worse than those upstream, their ecosystem soundness was better than those of the upstream sites from an ecological perspective.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.224-229
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• 2006

Utilization of organic by-product fertilizers has many beneficial effects on agricultural activities and in aspects of the disposal of enormous amounts of livestock manure. Most of these beneficial effects are related to the improvement of soil condition, such as fertility status and physicochemical quality of soil. But, appropriate indexes are needed to effectively manage the quality of organic by-product fertilizers amended on soil. To find chemical and physical standard to control the compost quality, the changes in chemical and physical characteristics of organic by-product fertilizers during composting were investigated, and also an appropriate physical method for this end. The results showed chemical properties, such as humic acid content, OM/N ratio, cation exchange capacity and salt content, had significant relationships during the composting. The water content, particle and bulk densities, particle size and color indices, as physical properties, were also applicable factors for the quality control of compost.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.64-73
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• 2023

Before 2022, there was a lot of confusion in the process of planning and implementing the projects for ecological restoration of the stream due to dualization the principal agent of stream management. Because the Ministry of Environment took charge of the project in 2022, securing the health of aquatic ecosystem of stream became an essential factor in the project. Therefore, in this study, the streams that require the project for ecological restoration was selected in Han River estuary, where it is essential to secure the health of the stream aquatic ecosystem as blackish water zone and Ramsar wetland are located. Physical, chemical, spatial/humanistic, health of aquatic ecosystems evaluation indexes were calculated based on the detailed facts and figures of the project for ecological restoration of the stream in the beginning. Ranking, re-scaling, z-score, and t-score normalization methods were applied to the calculated evaluation index, and the values were compared and analyzed. After that, the entropy weight method was applied to each evaluation index. Through this process, the streams(Mokgamcheon, Anyangcheon etc.) that require the project for ecological restoration were selected for the purpose of securing the health of the aquatic ecosystem in Han River estuary. The result of this study can be used as basic research data in the process of selecting the priority determination of the projects for ecological restoration of the stream.

• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.461-470
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• 1997

There are 7 classes, 17 orders, and 141 species of benthic macroinvertebrates at the 5 study sites from Feb, '91 to May, '92. Total species frequency number has less variations among sites than seasonal changes. Not considering seasonal changes this indicates that there are some influences from outside pollution sources. Seasonally, Ortho chadiinae sp. 2 take 21.2% share of total species. It was the dominant species in Feb. '91. With total average level Ephemeroptera take 51.3% of total species as first dominant species. Diptera 27.8% as second dominant species and Trichoptera 16.7% as third dominant species. Through these biological indexes, they appear to have unstable living environments in summer at sites 1 and 5. One can see that site 1 is more polluted than site 3 because site 1 has more pollution sources such as pastures and recreation areas.