• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.549-574
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• 2007

This paper was intended to evaluate environmental policies of South Korea and compare its environmental sustainability with other Eastern Asian countries in terms of some sustainability measures. To meet the purpose, the paper is composed of three parts: a brief and critical review of Korea's current environmental policies, comparison of its sustainability with other Eastern Asian countries in terms of well-known environmental sustainability indices, and comparison in terms of a less well-known alternative measure. Korea's environmental policies as stipulated in "Green Vision 21", "Green Korea 2005" were evaluated in light of OECD EPRK 2006. Korea's environmental performance is then compared with other countries based on such environmental sustainability indices as EF, ESI, EPI and EVI. Unfortunately the well-publicized indices to measure sustainable development (SD) seem to fail in measunng SD and in providing comparability, because it does not base on the genuine concept of SD. Therefore, we tried to suggest an alternative measurement in terms of sustainability quantity (SQ), which is presented for South Korea and her major trading partners, such as USA, Japan and China.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.99-108
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• 2010

This study investigated the environmental indices in environmental administration, and to presents how to develop a sustainable environmental evaluation index. The index should be used to evaluate composite plans in the environmental aspects as well as means for setting goals of basic plans for the environment and its management. Specifically, the goals of composite plans are to check environments and land use frame, and evaluate individual measures (public projects). Environment policies are required to be 'a policy creating a clean environment' from 'a policy of environment regulation'. For the organization of a basic framework of environment policies, five topics are needed to be considered, such as the clarification of the idea of environment, establishment of environment regulations, environment management plan, plan to support civilian's action, and local government's efforts for the global matters of environment. For the amenity environments, people should expand their environmental behavior based on their voluntary intentions in transformation of personal life styles, projects with less load on the environment, development of environmentally-friendly projects with consideration for their impact on the earth. This study suggests that they should put more efforts into the development and implementation of useful environmental indices which effectively analyse the regional character to protect the natural ecology and create an sustainable environment with wide coverage.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 1998.09a
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• pp.218-224
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• 1998

The coefficients of variation obtained from three typical vegetation indices of eight levels of multi-spatial resolution images in urban areas were employed to identify the optimum spatial resolution in terms of maintaining information quality. These multi-spatial resolution images were prepared by degrading 1 meter simulated, 16 meter ADEOS/AVNIR, and 30 meter Landsat-TM images. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Perpendicular Vegetation Index (PVI) and Soil Adjusted Ratio Vegetation Index (SARVI) were applied to reduce data redundancy and compare the characteristics of multi-spatial resolution image of vegetation indices. The threshold point on the curve of the coefficient of variation was defined as the optimum resolution level for the analysis with multi-spatial resolution image sets. Also, the results from the image segmentation approach of region growing to extract man-made features were compared with these multi-spatial resolution image sets.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.365-374
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• 2023

Eight years (2014-2021) of climate data were collected from an automatic weather observation system installed at the foot of Mt. Geumo in Chilgok, Gyeongbuk. Using these data, we investigated local bio-climatological indices (warmth index, WI; coldness index, CI; and effective accumulated temperature, EAT) of the mountain region adjacent to the Keimyung Dongyeong forest. The study area's WI and CI were 109.3℃ and -11.3℃ per month, respectively, averaged across 8 years. These values are indicative of an evergreen broad-leaved forest in the warm temperate climate zone, suitable for cultivating sweet persimmons and figs. Additionally, EAT in Dongyeong was 2,113.7℃, averaged across 8 years, suitable for growing crops such as corn, soybean, and potato.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.381-396
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• 2010

It is essential to consider strategies, spatial planning, and reflection of sustainability for the creation of sound urban spaces. To this end, there is a need for plans that can secure better sustainability through strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of plans. This study examined the literature and available precedent to develop a SEA model for administrative plans for urban development including metropolitan plans, urban master plans and urban management plans. In the course of development of the model, environmental issues associated with the urban plans were analyzed by classifying them into ten categories, including "spatial planning," "conservation planning," "greenbelt systems," "habitats." and etc. according to their rank. Furthermore, those issues were reflected on the development of environmental evaluation indices for the plans. Overall and detailed environmental indices that can be applied to the administrative plans for urban development including metropolitan plans, urban master plans and urban management plans were devised for five stages: (1) Establishment of development goals and strategy, (2) Analysis of current status and characteristics, (3) Conceptualization of spatial structure, (4) Planning for each department, and (5) Execution and management. Sub plans are more detailed and concrete. Criteria based on the evaluation indices, when performing evaluations on plans based on each environmental assessment index in reference to experts and the literature, were used to forecast their effects, i.e. whether they had a positive, negative, or no effect or relationship, or whether their effects was uncertain. Based on the forecasts, this study then presents means to establish more improvable plans. Furthermore, by synthesis of the effects according to each index and integration of the process, plans were analyzed overall. This study reflects the characteristics of the present time period based on issues in the SEA process and techniques in upper level administrative plans being newly established, and presents them according to the stage of each plan. Furthermore, by forecasting the effect of plans by stage, this study presents proposals for improvement, and in this aspect, can be meaningful in promoting plan improvements through SEA.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2019

River water quality and organisms have a very close relationship with the human living environment and health, so it is very important to ensure and maintain the ecological integrity of the aquatic ecosystem. In that sense, benthic diatoms have relatively little mobility, can explain the effects of long-term exposed pollution sources, and are very suitable indicator organisms for river ecosystem evaluation. Diatom ecologists have been developed various diatom indices to assess water quality and stream ecosystem over the world. However, they so far have insufficient identification of taxa, are strongly regional, and are difficult to apply as they are domestically. Unfortunately, there has not been developed an independent diatom index suitable for the Korean stream. Therefore, management of water quality and aquatic ecosystem suitable for domestic rivers can be made, and development or improvement of comprehensive multivariate diatom index for the integrated assessment of water quality and aquatic ecosystem is urgently needed.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.951-961
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• 2016

To prevent increasing instances of heat-related illnesses due to heat waves generated by climate change, a customized thermal environment index should be developed for outdoor workers. In this study, we conducted sensitivity analysis of the Masan harbor during a heat wave period (August 9th to 15th, 2013) using the MENEX model with metabolic rate and clothing-insulation data, in order to obtain realistic information about the thermal environment. This study shows that accurate input data are essential to gather information for thermophysiological indices (PST, DhR, and OhR). PST is sensitive to clothing insulation as a function of clothing. OhR is more sensitive to clothing insulation during the day and to the metabolic rate at night. From these results, it appears that when exposed to high-temperature thermal environments in summer, wearing highly insulated clothing and getting enough rest (to lower the metabolic rate) can aid in preventing heat-related illnesses. Moreover, in the case of high-intensity harbor work, quantification of allowed working time (OhR) during heat waves is significant for human health sciences.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.451-462
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• 2017

Physical weathering caused by external forces and chemical weathering caused by the decomposition or alteration of constituent materials are the two factors that dominate the mechanical properties of rocks. In this study, a field investigation was undertaken to identify the physical and chemical weathering characteristics of the biotite granite and granitic weathered soils in Gyeongju, South Korea. Samples were collected according to their grade of weathering and subjected to modal analysis, XRD analysis, XRF analysis, physical property tests, particle size distribution tests, and slake durability tests. Modal and XRD analysis identified these rocks as biotite granite; secondary alteration minerals were not observed. Physical property tests and particle size distribution analyses indicate an average porosity of 41.28% and a sand content of > 90 wt.%. These values are somewhat higher than those of granites in general. The results of the slake durability test and XRF analyses show that the physical and chemical weathering indices of the samples vary with the degree of weathering.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.461-473
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• 2011

In this paper, trends of the widely used stability indices (SIs) and environmental parameters (EPs) were examined by using the 30-year routine rawinsonde data observed in three upper air observatories (Osan, Gwangju and Pohang) over South Korea. To take into account of the contribution of water vapor to a parcel density, we applied the virtual temperature correction in calculating the SIs and EPs. The trends of SIs and EPs indicated significant increases of temperature and moisture contents, especially at the low-to-mid troposphere during the last 10 years. The warming trend in the lower troposphere shows about 3 times greater than that of the global average (+0.10- $+0.20^{\circ}C$/10 years), whereas the cooling trend of lower stratosphere demonstrates a similar trend with the global average (-0.33- $-0.60^{\circ}C$/10 years). The vertical stability is clearly reduced due to the unsymmetrical change of atmospheric elements. The unstabilizing trend with the increased moisture contents gradually changed the atmospheric environment in South Korea into the conditions favorable for the occurrence of severe weather or intensifications of such events. These trends are consistent with the recent observations, which showed clear increase in the intensity and frequency of heavy rainfalls.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2005.09b
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• pp.1018-1019
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• 2005