• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.839-846
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• 2016

Since oil leakage is one of the most common nonpoint pollution sources that contaminate soil in Korea, the capacity of soil microbial community for degrading petroleum hydrocarbons should be considered to assess the functional value of soil resource. However, conventional methods (e.g., microcosm experiments) to assess the remediation capacity of soil microbial community are costly and time-consuming to cover large area. The present study suggests a new approach to assess the toluene remediation capacity of soil microbial community using a microbial diversity index, which is a simpler detection method than measuring degradation rate. The results showed that Shannon index of microbial community were correlated with specific degradation rate ($V_{max}$), a degradation factor. Subsequently, a correlation equation was generated and applied to Michaelis-Menten kinetics. These results will be useful to conveniently assess the remediation capacity of soil microbial community and can be widely applied to diverse engineering fields including environment-friendly construction engineering fields.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.171-181
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• 2014

This study was performed to prevent deforestation and forest degradation and vitalize REDD+ program through suitable site analysis at the 16 districts of South Korea. For this, we worked out profit potential, opportunity cost, carbon credits through making it use of conception of the Forest Carbon Index. As a results, Gyeonggi-do, Incheon Metropolitan City, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Daegu Metropolitan City, Gwangwon-do included in the top 5 among the 16 districts of South Korea. In case of Gyeonggi-do as best suitable site, reduction of carbon emission was best high due to reduction area of deforestation. And profit potential was also high in accordance with practice of REDD+ program. Furthermore, we proposed four plans to activate REDD+ program in South Korea on the basis of the results.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.294-300
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• 2018

Cometabolism technology was employed to degrade lignin wastewater in Sequencing Batch Biofilm Reactor. Cometabolic system (with glucose and lignin in inflow) and the control group (only lignin in inflow) were established to do a comparative study. In contrast with the control group, the average removal rates of lignin increased by 14.7% and total oarganic carbon increased by 32% in the cometabolic system with glucose as growth substrate, under the condition of 5 mg/L DO, $0.2kgCOD/(m^3{\cdot}d)$ lignin and glucose $1.0kgCOD/(m^3{\cdot}d)$. Functional groups of lignin are degraded effectively in cometabolic system proved by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer, and the degradation products were amides (mainly including acetamide, N-ethylacetamide and N, N-diethylacetamide), alcohols (mainly including glycerol and ethylene glycol) and acids. Meanwhile, results of Polymerase Chain Reaction-Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis showed great differences in microbial population richness between cometabolic system and the control group. The Margalef's richness index and Shannon-Wiener's diversity index of microorganism in cometabolic system were 3.075 and 2.61, respectively. The results showed that extra addition of glucose, with a concentration of 943 mg/L, was beneficial to lignin biodegradation in cometabolic system.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.192-198
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• 2004

The heavy dependence of modern science-based agriculture on chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides, and heavy machinery gave rise to questions about long-term sustainability of agriculture in relation to degradation of soil quality. The research achievements and trends in developing soil quality indicators were introduced and discussed in this report. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) established 13 agri-environment indicators including soil quality indicator in 1994, collected the soil data and methodologies for development of soil quality indicators in OECD member countries responded to OECD questionnaires and published the OECD reports, Environmental Indicators for Agriculture Volume 1, 2, and 3. Leading countries such as USA, Canada and New Zealand collected national data and evaluated the data in aspect of soil quality. They developed the various methods for selecting a minimum data set (MDS), scoring the soil properties and calculating soil quality index integrating the score of each soil property.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.8-18
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• 2019

The objectives of this study were to analyze the influence of chemical water quality on fish guilds, pollution tolerance and the multi-metric ecological health, based on the Fish Assessment Index (FAI) in the main stream of Mangyeong River between 2009-2016. The quality of water with specific conductivity, TP, and $NH_4-N$ got worse dramatically in the down region. During the study, a total of 50 species were collected and the most dominant species was Zacco platypus. Also known as tolerant species, accounted 22.9% of the total abundances, thus indicating a trophic degradation. The downstream region (S5) had the highest number of fish external abnormalities, indicating a degradation of ecological health, based on the fish assemblages. Pearson correlation analysis indicated that relative abundance of tolerant fish species and omnivore fish species had a significant positive correlation(r>0.30, p<0.05) with values of BOD, conductivity and $NH_4-N$. Whereas, the relative abundance of the sensitive species and insectivore species had a significant negative relations (r<-0.30, p<0.001) with the parameters. The mean obtained from the multi-metric fish model, based on the FAI of all sites was 47 (n=40). This indicated a "fair condition" in the ecological health, and the downstream regions (S3-S5) were judged as "bad condition", indicating an influence of the chemical degradation on the ecological health.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.1-14
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• 2011

In order to determine temporal changes of the urban landscape, interdependence and interaction among geo-spatial objects can be analyzed using GIS analytic methods. In this study, to investigate changes in the landscape structure of the Namyangju area, the size and shape of landscape patches, and the distance between the patches were analyzed with the Spatial Autocorrelation Method. In addition, both global and local spatial autocorrelation analyses were conducted. The results of global Moran's I revealed that both patch size and shape index transformed to a more dispersed pattern over time. Next, the local Moran's I of patch size in all time series determined that almost all patches were of a high-low pattern. Meanwhile, the local Moran's I of the shape index was found to have changed from a high-high pattern to a high-low pattern in time series. Finally, as time passes, the number of hot spot patches about size and shape index had been decreased according to the results of hot spot analysis. These changes appeared around the development projects in the study area. From the results of this study, degradation of landscape patches in Namyangju were ascertained and their specific areas were delineated. Such results can be used as useful data in selecting areas for conservation and for preparing plans and strategies in environmental restoration.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.175-189
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• 2020

Municipal solid waste disposal is considered as one of the most important risks for environmental contamination which necessitates the development of strategies to reduce destructive consequences on the ecosystem as related especially to heavy metal accumulation. This study investigates heavy metal (i.e., As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn) accumulation in the Tonekabon region, NW of Iran that is related to city waste disposal and evaluates the environmental impact in the Caspian Sea coastal region. For this purpose, after performing field studies and collecting 50 soil specimens from 5 sites of the study area, geochemical tests (i.e., inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, atomic absorption spectroscopy and x-ray fluorescence) were conducted on the soil specimens collected from the 5 sites (named as Sites A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5) and the results were used to estimate the pollution indices (i.e., geo-accumulation index, normalized enrichment factor, contamination factor, and pollution load index). The obtained indices were utilized to assess the eco-toxicological risk level in the landfill site which indicated that the city has been severely contaminated by Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn. These levels have been developed along the stream towards the nearshore areas indicating uptake of soil degradation. The heavy metal contamination was classified to range from unpolluted to highly polluted, which indicated serious heavy metal pollution in the study area as related to municipal solid waste disposal in Tonekabon.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.631-648
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• 2012

The integrative ecological approaches of chemical assessments, physical habitat modelling, and multi-metric biological health modelling were applied to Gwanpyeong Stream within Gap-Stream watersheds to evaluate environmental impacts on the constructions of residential and commercial complex. For the analysis, the surveys conducted from 45 sites of reference streams within the Gap-Stream watershed and 3 regular sites during 2009 - 2010. Physical habitat health, based on the habitat model of Qualitative Habitat Evaluation Index(QHEI) declined from the headwaters(good - fair condition) to the downstream(poor condition). Chemical water quality, based turbidity and electric conductivity(EC), was degraded toward to the downstream, and especially showed abrupt increases, compared to the values of control streams(CS). Also, concentrations of chlorophyll-a in the downstreams were greater compared to the control stream(CS), indicating an eutrophication. Biological health conditions, based on the Index of Biological Integrity(IBI) using fish assemblages, averaged 19.3 which is judged as a fair condition by the biological criteria of the Ministry of Environment, Korea. The comparisons of model metric values in sensitive species and riffle-benthic species on the Maximum Species Richness Line(MSRL) of 45 reference streams indicated a massive disturbances in all sampling locations. Also, tolerance guild and trophic guild analyses suggest that dominances of tolerant species and omnivores were evident, indicating a biological degradation by habitat disturbances and organic matter pollutions. There was no distinct longitudinal variations of IBI model values from the headwater to the downstream in spite of slight chemical and habitat health gradients among the sampling sites. Overall, integrative ecological health(IEH) scores, based on the chemical, physical, and biological parameters, were low compared to the 45 reference streams due to physical and chemical disturbances of massive constructions of the residential and commercial complex. This stream, thus showed a tendency of typical urban streams which are disturbed in the chemical water quality, habitat structures, and biological integrity. Effective stream management plans and restoration strategies are required in this urban stream for improving integrative stream health.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.260-270
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• 2012

The demographic and environmental changes such as the decrease of the population growth rate and the increase of the population of the senior citizens, which become issues of the modern society, are bringing numerous changes of many aspects like national economy, community, and culture. These social phenomena give impacts on the school facilities as well. Thus owing to the decrease of the number of the students, the number of the newly constructed schools has been decreased drastically, and moreover the merger of the schools cause many schools to be default. Meanwhile, the school facilities have been expanded into the functions of the local community centers, and the various educational activities demand the diversity and flexibility of the spaces. These factors add more burdens to the current schools. Therefore the school facilities are needed to adopt a flexible and relevant change necessary for using the spaces in accordance with the changed needs of the times, and are needed to reinvented continuously not to limit the educational and social activities because of the degradation of the school facilities. Yet because there are no proper criteria for doing the task, problems related to the relevance of the task and the unnecessary investment are raised. So through this study I tried to demonstrate the standardized index in terms of the sequential priority of upgrading the facilities among the schools.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.731-741
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• 2015

The objectives of study were to evaluate fish species compositions of trophic guilds and tolerance guilds and apply ecological fish assessment (EFA) models to Bekjae Weir, Keum-River Watershed. The EFA models were Stream Index of Biological Integrity (SIBI) used frequently for running water and Lentic Ecosystem Health Assessment (LEHA) used for assessments of stagnant water. The region of Bekjae Weir as a "four major river project" was originally a lotic ecosystem before the weir construction (2010, $B_{WC}$) but became more like lentic-lotic hybrid system after the construction (2011, $A_{WC}$). In the analysis of species composition and ecological bioindicator (fish), fish species with a preference of running water showed significant decreases (p < 0.05), whereas the species with a preference of stagnant water showed significant increases (p < 0.05). After the weir construction, relative abundances of tolerant species increased, and the proportion of insectivores decreased. This phenomenon indicated the changes of biotic compositions in the system by the weir construction. Applications of SIBI and LEHA models to the system showed that the two model values decreased at the same time after the weir construction ($A_{WC}$), and the region became more like lentic-lotic hybrid system, indicating the degradation of ecosystem health. The model values of SIBI were 19 and 16, respectively, in the BWC and AWC, and the health conditions were both "C-rank". In the mean time, the LEHA model analysis showed that the values was 28 in the BWC and 24 in the AWC, thus the health was turned to be "B-Rank" in the BWC and "C-Rank" in the AWC. indicating a degradation of ecological heath after the weir construction.