• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.243-252
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• 2006

The emergy concept was used to valuate the contributions of a tidal flat ecosystem included in the fourth stage reclamation plan for the Youngsan River area to the Korean economy. Emergy contributions of the ecosystem were compared with those of economic valuations performed on the same ecosystem. The tidal flat ecosystem contributed 3.55 million EmW/ha annually. This, however, cannot be compared directly with those of the economic valuations because both methodologies approach the valuation of ecosystems in different perspectives. The emergy methodology is a donor-based valuation in which what goes into making a product or service is measured, while the economic valuation is a receiver-based approach in which human receivers determine the value of an ecosystem product or service. An emergy valuation was conducted for the three ecosystem functions included in the economic valuations to compare the results of both methodologies on the same basis. Fishery production and pollutants removal contributed 9.86 million EmW/ha/yr and 0.88 million EmW/ha/yr, respective1y. The conservation value of the tidal flat ecosystem was 3.55 million EmW/ha/yr. Overall, the emergy valuation that try to include works of both human and nature on the same basis resulted in higher economic contribution of the tidal flat ecosystem than that calculated by the economic methodologies in which only human works are measured based on the willingness-to-pay of people. This study showed that the emergy concept could provide an alternative tool for policy decision-making regarding utilization and conservation of ecosystems by approaching the ecosystem valuation from a different perspective than that of economic methodologies.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.102-115
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• 2015

Several emergy researches have been carried out to estimate the value of marine ecosystem services in Korea over the last decade. Their results cannot be compared mainly due to inconsistency in emergy-money ratios used to convert emergy unit into monetary unit. This study aimed at providing a standardized format for the emergy evaluation of the Korean economy and environment for different emergy evaluations to be compatible. Even though the area of the continental shelf increased in this study compared to those of previous studies, areaweighted average tidal range for the entire continental shelf of Korea resulted in smaller tidal range, decreasing the final emergy input from tide. However, emergy inputs from nonrenewable resources and purchased goods and services increased with new categorization and use of more detailed data, combined with updated unit emergy values. This led to higher emergy-money ratio for the Korean economy, indicating that previous emergy valuations might have overestimated the contributions of marine ecosystem to the real wealth of the Korean society. The base year for gross domestic product used in the emergy evaluation needs to be clearly indicated due to its impact on the calculation of the emergy-money ratio. A standardized emergy table for the Korean economy will contribute to ensuring consistency among future emergy researches on the valuation of marine ecosystem services.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.134-143
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• 2016

This study analyzed the characteristics of emergy inputs from environmental sources that are essential in maintaining ecological processes and providing ecosystems services of the tidal flat ecosystems in Korea. Environmental sources provided a total of $4.98{\times}10^{21}sej/yr$ of emergy to the tidal flats of Korea. The emergy inputs from environmental sources were worth 1,141 billion ￦/yr. This is the value of environmental conditions that are the basis of ecosystem services provided by the tidal flat ecosystems. The emergy input per hectare to regional tidal flats decreased along the coastline from northwest to southeast, with the highest input in the Incheon-Gyeonggi area in the central western part of the Korean coast and the lowest input in the Busan area in the southeastern end. This reflects the general distribution pattern of the magnitude of tidal ranges along the Korean coast. There was no a clear-cut relationship between emergy inputs per unit area and fishery production(expressed in emergy quantity) per unit area. However, tidal flats in the west coast with higher emery inputs per unit area produced more fishery products than those in the south coast with lower emergy inputs, suggesting a possibility that the emergy inputs could be used for the rapid evaluation and comparison of the potential for ecosystem service provision by individual tidal flats.