• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2000

An EMERGY analysis of the main energy flows driving the economy of humans and life support systems consists of environmental energies, fuels, and imports, all expresses as solar emjoules. Total EMERGY use(720.0 E20 sej/yr) of the Nakdong River Basin is 96 per cent from imported sources, fuels and goods and services. EMERGY flows from the environment such as rain and geological uplift flux accounted for only 4 percent of total EMERGY use. Consequently, the ratio of outside investment to attracting natural resources was large, like other industrialized areas. EMERGY use per person in the Nakdong River Basin indicates a moderate EMERGY standard of living, even though the indigenous resources are very poor. Population of 6.66 million people in 1996 is already in excess of carrying capacity of the basin. Carrying capacity for steady state based on its renewable sources in only 0.226 million people. EMERGY yield ratio and environment loading ratio were 1.07 and 28.52, respectively. EMERGY sustainability index, a ratio of EMERGY yield ratio to environment loading ratio, is therefore less than one, which is indicative of highly developed consumer oriented economies. This study suggests that the economic structure of the Nakdong River Basin should be transformed from the present industrial structure to the social-economic structure based on an ecological-recycling concept for the sustainable use of the Nakdong River.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.335-343
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• 2017

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an important policy implemented before starting development projects to estimate and reduce environmental impact. However, the difficulty of quantification on several rating categories has hampered comprehensive analysis. Instead of it, the current EIA just summarizes outcome of investigation. Therefore, EIA fails to definitively ascertain whether the development shold be approved or not. This study aimed at providing the way to comprehensive decision-making by applying Emergy analysis and Emergy indicators to EIA. Production (P), Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR), Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR) and Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) were selected for indicators. The indicators of range approving the development were set up with comparing before and after development or according to circumstances of which view of average that was classified as region or industry is appropriate to analysis. As a result, the value after development of P should be higher than the value before development. EYR and ESI of the value before development should be higher than region or industry average. On the contrary to these, ELR of the value after development should be lower than region or industry average. To verify applying Emergy indicators to EIA comprehensive analysis, Emergy evaluation was conducted to real case. As a result, applying Emergy analysis could suggest whether the development is appropriate or not. These indices and the result of this research are expected to be applied decision-making on environmental impact for sustainable development.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.439-445
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• 2010

An emergy analysis of the main energy flows driving the economy of humans and life support systems consists of environmental energies, fuels, and imports, all expressed as solar emjoules. Total emergy use (371 E20 sej/yr) of the Western Nakdong River Basin is 97 per cent from imported sources, fuels and goods and services. Emergy flows from the environment such as rain and geological uplift flux accounted for only 2.9 percent of total emergy use. Emergy yield ratio and environment loading ratio were 1.03 and 33.27, respectively. Emergy sustainability index, a ratio of emergy yield ratio to environment loading ratio, is therefore less than one, which is indicative of highly developed consumer oriented economies. It is necessary for an efficient management of Western Nakdong River Basin to reduce pollution load basically and to restructure economic activities into an environmental friendly industrial structure depending on renewable energy and resources.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.35-43
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to analyze emergy flows of rice for evaluating the value of rice production and sustainability. Emergy analysis evaluates the sustainability of systems or processes considering all the inputs to make a product or a sevice. In this study, we analyzed the emergy flows and indices of rice productionand compared the regional emergy values using statisticcal analysis: input materials, hours per unit area(10a), and production costs. As the results, we found that the rates of external investment (EIR= 18.87) and environmental loading (ELR=21.7) are significantly high during the rice cultivation. However, emergy yield ratio(EYR) shows that rice is a valuable resource because EYR is 5.12 and environmental Sustainability IndexSI value is as low as 0.24 and it shows rice has low sustainability. This study also shows that Chungcheongnam-do has the highest SI value for rice production due to low environmental loading and abundant natural energy during rice cultivation. These results of rice emergy flows and sustainability assessments could provide a way of sustainable rice cultivation with decrease of environmental loading from fertilizer.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.449-454
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• 2000

Sustainable development has been the key concept, both in economic policies and in environmental management. On the basis of an systems ecology perspective, this suggests the sustainable development of Korea\`s natural environment and economic activity using the EMERGY evaluation. The total EMERGY use(7,730E20sej/yr) in Korea is 81 percent from imported sources, fuels and goods and services. The ratio of outside investment to attracting natural resources is already large, like other industrialized countries. Continued availability of purchased inputs at a favorable balance of EMERGY trade, currently about 2.85 to 1 net EMERGY, tis the basis for present economic activity and must decrease as the net EMERGY of purchased inputs including fossil fuels goes down. EMERGY yield ratio and environmental loading ratio were 1.23 and 20.30, respectively. The population level is already in excess of carrying capacity. Its carrying capacity for steady state on its renewable sources is only 2.2 million people, compared to 45.9 million in 1977. EMERGY sustainability index is therefore less than one, which is indicative of highly developed consumer oriented economies. Until now the development of a country has been achieved by the economic growth, but it can be sustained in the long run by the use of renewable resource systems. the efficiency of energy usage, and the transformation of the social-economic structure based on an ecological-recycling concept.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.629-636
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• 1996

The developments of mariculture fisheries depend on both the natural environmental inputs such as sun, rain, wind, tide and the economic inputs such as ships, fuels, facilities, labor. for the enhancement of mariculture productivity in Deukryang Bay, a new attempt has been made to connect the environmental resources and the economic activity within one system. This study applies EMERGY analysis that evaluates environmental energies, fuels, goods and services in terms of solar emjoelus. In total EMERGY use $(69.65\times10^{20}\;sej/yr)$ the natural environment inputs is $78\%\;(54.60\times10^{20}\;sej/yr)$. This means that the mariculture in Deukryang Bay depends on mainly environmental resources. Net EMERGY yield ratio was 4.63 which indicated high value as a resource, EMERGY investment ratio was 0.28 that means to gain 3.6 times energy from the natural environment than those of economy. If the fisherie's products are made by renewable EMERGY input to Deukryang Bay, the calculated carrying capacity of fishes, crustaceans, shellfish and seaweeds were 1,140, 110, 1,553 and 9,074 ton/yr, respectively. If the quantity of renewable EMERGY input to mariculture grounds in Deukrysng Bay was calculated-based on only shellfish product, shellfish products was estimated as about 1,195 ton/yr.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.165-175
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• 1994

An emergy analysis of the main energy flows driving the economy of humans and life support systems was made including environmental energies, fuels, and imports, all expressed as solar emjoules. The total emergy use (4, 373 E20 sej/yr) is 90 per cent from imported sources, fuels and goods and services. The emergy flows from the environment are modest, because the share of global inputs such as ruin and geological uplift flux is modest. Consequently, the ratio of outside investment to attracting natural resources is already large, like other industrialized countries. The population level is already in excess of carrying capacity. The emergy use per person in Korea indicates a moderate emergy standard of living, even though the indigenous resource is very poor. If the present economy were running entirely on stored reserves of fuels, soils, woods, etc., it would last about 2 years. Its carrying capacity for steady state on its renewable sources is only 3.3 million people, compared to 43.3 million in 1991. Continued availability of foreign oil at a favorable balance of emergy trade, currently about 7 to 1 net emergy, is the basis for present economic activity and must decrease as the net emergy of foreign oil purchased goes down. Close economic integration with Middle East may determine how long this is possible in the future.

• 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.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.5-13
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• 2014

This paper introduces emergy(spelled with "m") that is a new environmental indicator in architecture, aiming to clarify conflicting claims of building design components in the process of energy-retrofit. Much of design practitioners' attention on low energy use in operational phases, may simply shift the lowered environmental impact within the building boundary to large consumption of energy in another area. Specifically, building energy reduction strategies without a holistic view starting from natural formation, may lead to the depletion of non-renewable geobiological sources (e.g. minerals, fossil fuels, etc.), which leaves a building with an isolated energy-efficient object. Therefore, to overcome the narrow outlook, this research discusses the total ecological impact of a building which embraces all process energy as well as environmental cost represented by emergy. A case study has been conducted to explore emergy-driven design work. In comparison with operational energy-driven scenarios, the results elucidate how energy and emergy-oriented decision-making bring about different design results, and quantify building components' emergy contribution in the end. An average-size ($101.9m^2$) single family house located in South Korea was sampled as a benchmark case, and the analysis of energy and material use was conducted for establishment of the baseline. Adoption of the small building is effective for the goal of study since this research intends to measure environmental impact according to variation of passive design elements (windows size, building orientation, wall materials) with new metric (emergy) regardless of mechanical systems. Performance simulations of operational energy were developed and analyzed separately from the calculation of emergy magnitudes in building construction, and then the total emergy demand of each proposed design was evaluated. Emergy synthesis results verify that the least operational energy scenario requires greater investment in indirect energy in construction, which clearly reveals that efficiency gains are likely to be overwhelmed by increment of material flows. This result places importance on consideration of indirect energy use underscoring necessity of emergy evaluation towards the environment-friendly building in broader sense.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.185-191
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• 2000

Sustainable development has been the key concept, both in economic policies and in environmental management since 1970s. In the view of systems ecology, sustainable resource use strategies are considered to be essential in achieving sustainable development. During the last three decades, the discipline of systems ecology has applied ecological energetic analysis to the evaluation of the contribution of natural environments to economic systems. ENERGY analysis of main energy flows driving the economy of humans and life support systems of a city was made including environmental energies, fuel, and inputs, all expressed as solar emjoules. Total EMERGY use of Pusan was 3.89 E22 sej/yr, about 90 percent of it was purchased sources from outside during eleven years from 1985 to 1995. EMERGY flows from the environment were less than 10 percent. EMERGY yield ratio and environmental loading ratio were 1.10 and 10.45, respectively. EMERGY sustainability index is there(ore less than one, which is indicative of highly developed consumer oriented economies. Development of a city has been achieved in the short run by the economic growth, but it can be sustained in the long run by the use of renewable resource systems.