• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.204-216
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• 2019

To evaluate the biological integrity of aquatic ecosystems, we developed Korean multimetric diatom index (KMDI) using metrics that many researchers have been previously described, and compared to single-metric diatom index such as trophic diatom index (TDI) and diatom assemblage index to organic pollution (DAIpo). For the biological and environmental data, we investigated the epilithic diatoms, water quality and the land-use for 923 sites in Korean streams between 2013-2017, and estuaries between 2010-2017, respectively. Five appropriate metrics were selected according to the following steps; 1) extraction of 300 potential metrics (biological, chemical, physical, and geographical) based on previous references, of these, 2) 46 samples having high separation power were selected, 3) the selected metrics were each tested for variability, redundancy, and sensitivity to the environments, finally 4) construction of multi-metric diatom index comprising single type metrics such as TDI, DAIpo, % motile diatoms, % Achnanthes / (Achnanthes+Navicula), and % number of Gomphonema species. The biological integrity of the 233 sites from the Geum River basin were independently investigated using KMDI. Collectively, the new KMDI showed high sensitivity and explanatory power for environmental factors such as land-use, biochemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, and electric conductivity. However, it had slightly higher biological integrity for the same sites as compared to single type diatom metrics. Finally, more data accumulation from all over Korea and the development of acceptable diatom metrics were required.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.9-19
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• 2023

Drought is a natural disaster that can have serious social impacts. Drought's impact ranges from water supply for humans to ecosystems, but the impact of drought on river water quality requires careful investigation. In general, drought occurs meteorologically and is classified as agricultural drought, hydrological drought, and environmental drought. In this study, the BOD environmental drought is defined using the bivariate copula joint probability distribution model between the meteorological drought index and the river BOD, and based on this, the environmental drought condition index (EDCI-BOD) was proposed. The results of examining the proposed index using past precipitation and BOD observation data showed that EDCI-BOD expressed environmental drought well in terms of river BOD water quality. In addition, by classifying the calculated EDCI-BOD into four levels, namely, 'attention', 'caution', 'alert', and 'seriousness', a practical monitoring stage for environmental drought of BOD was constructed. We further estimated the sensitivity of the stream BOD to meteorological drought, and through this, we could identify the stream section in which the stream BOD responded relatively more sensitively to the occurrence of meteorological drought. The results of this study are expected to provide information necessary for river BOD management in the event of meteorological droughts.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.1-14
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• 2019

North Korea has frequently suffered from extreme agricultural crop droughts, which have led to food shortages, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The increasing frequency of extreme droughts, due to global warming and climate change, has increased the importance of enhancing the national capacity for drought management. Historically, a meteorological drought index based on data collected from weather stations has been widely used. But it has limitations in terms of the distribution of weather stations and the spatial pattern of drought impacts. Satellite-based data can be obtained with the same accuracy and at regular intervals, and is useful for long-term change analysis and environmental monitoring and wide area access in time and space. The Evaporative Stress Index (ESI), a satellite-based drought index using the ratio of potential and actual evaporation, is being used to detect drought response as a index of the droughts occurring rapidly over short periods of time. It is more accurate and provides faster analysis of drought conditions compared to the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), and the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). In this study, we analyze drought events during 2015-2017 in North Korea using the ESI satellite-based drought index to determine drought response by comparing with it with the SPI and SPEI drought indices.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.430-439
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• 2010

Inundation of roads by heavy rainfall has attracted more attention than traffic accidents, traffic congestion, and construction because it simultaneously causes travel delays and threatens driver safety. For these reasons, in this paper, we propose an inundation hazard index (IHI) of road links, which shows the possibility of inundation of road links caused by rainfall. To generate the index, we have used two key data sources, namely the digital elevation model (DEM) and past rainfall records of when inundation has occurred. IHI is derived by statistically analyzing the relationships between the normalized relative height of the road links calculated from DEM within the watershed and past rainfall records. After analyzing the practical applicability of the proposed index with a commercial car navigation system through a set of tests, we confirmed that the proposed IHI could be implemented to choose safer routes, with reduced chances of encountering roads having inundation risks.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.61-80
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• 2011

Through concentrated investments in environmental regulations centered around BOD, which is a biodegradable matter index, and basic environmental infrastructures, national BOD pollution level has continuously improved. Nonetheless, limitations of BOD management system has become evident through nation-wide stagnation and/or increases of refractory organic matters, such as COD, at main drinking water sources, and the need for a new index, which can easily indicate different environmental conditions, has increased. Therefore, this study suggests a new organic management index for a proper management of surface water. $COD_{Cr}$ and TOC were examined as candidates for surface water quality management index, and it was found that TOC was more appropriate than $COD_{Cr}$ as an organic matter management index. Through this study, it was found that TOC possesses following qualities: a more representative index; international acceptability; monitoring program is easier; better availability of analysis techniques; better accuracy and precision of analysis; less time required for analysis; ease of operation; management of disinfection byproducts; connection with present policies; existence of foreign and domestic application case studies; and correlation with water ecosystem.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.672-679
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• 2018

This study was conducted to predict the potential distribution and risk of invasive alien plant, Amaranthus patulus, in an agricultural area of South Korea. We collected 254 presence localities of A. patulus using field survey and literature search and stimulated the potential distribution area of A. patulus using maximum entropy modeling (MaxEnt) with six climatic variables. Two different kinds of agricultural risk index, raster risk index and regional risk index, were estimated. The 'raster risk index' was calculated by multiplying the potential distribution by the field area in $1{\times}1km$ and 'regional risk index' was calculated by multiplying the potential distribution by field area proportion in the total field of South Korea. The predicted potential distribution of A. patulus was almost matched with actual presence data. The annual mean temperature had the highest contribution for distribution modeling of A. patulus. Area under curve (AUC) value of the model was 0.711. The highest regions were Gwangju for potential distribution, Jeju for 'raster risk index' and Gyeongbuk for 'regional risk index'. This different ranks among the index showed the importance about the development of various risk index for evaluating invasive plant risk.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.477-488
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• 2018

In this study, heavy metal levels at the sediment monitoring network site upstream of the Gangjeong-Goryeong weir in the Nakdong River were surveyed from 2012 to 2016. We assessed the sediment pollution level using various pollution indexes based on ICP-MS analysis. The stream sediment pollution assessment standard, established through Regulation No. 687 of the National Institute of Environmental Research (2015), pollution load index (PLI), potential ecological risk index (RI), and mean PEL Quotient (mPELQ) were used to evaluate the sediment pollution level. We verified the representativeness of the monitoring point through the distribution of sedimentation and scour behavior by river bed surveying using anacousticDopplercurrentprofiler.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Emotion and Sensibility Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.91-95
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• 2001

In this study, we estimated the behavior of the diversity of physiological responses under varied physical environmental factors by measuring variations of heart rate variability (HRV), an index of activity of cardiac autonomic control. Seven healthy young male adults consented and participated in the study. The environmental conditions consisted of thermal, lighting, and acoustic conditions. Two components of HRV were measured. one was the low frequency (LF) component of HRV, which provided a quantitative index of the sympathetic and parasympathetic (vagal) activities controlling the heart rate (HR). The other component measured was the high frequency (HF) component, which provided an index of the vagal tone. The percent contribution of physical environmental factors to the variations in HRV indices were calculated by ANOVA. The contribution of physical environmental factors to the variations in HR was higher than the contribution of HF and LF. However, the contribution of these factors was lower than the contribution related with individual difference in all indices. This result showed that the individual diversity of physiological responses is not a negligible quantity.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.499-511
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• 2008

The major focus of this study is to evaluate a newly developed stream naturalness index system 'Habitat-riparian Indexing System (HIS).' There have been many studies that have assessed stream naturalness in order to provide information required for restoration. The results of these studies were enough for the purpose of the studies; however, the methodologies were limited especially with respect to rapid measurement and the representation of ecological habitats. Therefore, we derived crucial variables from a popularly utilized method and merged them with other criteria obtained from overseas approaches, resulting in the development of the HIS method. The stability of HIS was evaluated by comparing the results with the Stream Naturalness Index (SNI) of Cho (1997). We monitored 100 stream sites in the Nakdong River system using the two different methods for two sampling periods (spring and autumn), and the results were compared using statistical analyses. The determination coefficients between the index values from two methods were c.a. 0.6 for both seasons, and statistics revealed that HIS had a relatively higher stability, providing index values for stream environments. The results of this work suggest a possibility of the utility of HIS for other stream habitats.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2018

Air pollution index (API) is used in Mainland China and includes only $SO_2$, $NO_2$ and $PM_{10}$. In 2016, air quality index (AQI) replaced API. AQI contains three more air pollutants (CO, $O_3$ and $PM_{2.5}$). Both the indices emphasize on the effect of a single pollutant, whereas the contributions of all other pollutants are ignored. Therefore, in the present work, a novel air quality index (NAQI), which emphasizes on all air pollutants, has been introduced for the first time. The results showed that there were 19 d (5.2%) in API, 28 d (7.7%) in AQI and 183 d (50.1%) in NAQI when the indices were more than 100. In API, $PM_{10}$ and $SO_2$ were regarded as the primary pollutants, whereas all five air pollutants in AQI were regarded as primary. Furthermore, four air pollutants (other than the CO) in NAQI were regarded as primary pollutants. $PM_{10}$, as being the primary pollutant, contributed greatly in these air quality indices, and accounted for 51.2% (API), 37.0% (AQI) and 52.6% (NAQI). The results also showed that particulate matter pollution was significantly high in Luzhou, where stricter pollution control measures should be implemented.