• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.237-249
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• 2011

Land-use changes due to the socio-economic environment influence landscape patterns and processes, which affect habitats and biodiversity. This study considers the effects of such land-use changes, particularly on the traditional rural "Maeul" forested landscape, by analyzing landscape structure and vegetation changes. Three study areas were examined that have seen their populations decrease and age over the last few decades. Five types of plant life-forms (Raunkier life-forms) were distinguished to investigate ecosystem function. Principle component analysis was used to understand vegetation dynamics and community characteristics based on a vegetation similarity index. Ordination analysis transformed species-coverage data was introduced to clarify vegetation dynamics. Landscape indices, such as area metrics, edge metrics, and shape metrics, showed that spatial heterogeneity has increased over time in all areas. Pinus densiflora was the main land-use plant type in all study areas but decreased over time, whereas Quercus spp. increased. Over a decade, P. densiflora communities shifted to deciduous oak and plantation. These findings indicate that the impact of human activities on the Maeul landscape is twofold. While forestry activities caused heavy disturbances, the abandonment of traditional human activities has led to natural succession. Furthermore, it can be concluded that the type and intensity of these human impacts on landscape heterogeneity relate differently to vegetation succession. This reflects the cause and consequence of patch dynamics. We discuss an approach for sustainable landscape planning and management of the Maeul landscape based on traditional management.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.37-47
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• 2008

Recently, reckless exploitation of land resources without much consideration for the environmental value of the land has been witnessed to accommodate the ever-increasing demands for regional development. Fragmentation due to land development is a major reason for the declining biodiversity in forest ecosystems. The purposes of this study were (1) to investigate the relationship between the factors of land development and forest fragmentation in 13 watersheds of a metropolitan area and (2) to suggest a forest management plan through the relationship. We carried out a factor analysis to determine explanatory axes of forest fragmentation, and then conducted a correlation analysis between the factor scores and the factor of land development, such as the rate of built-up areas, road density, number of built-up patches, and area of housing developments. The first explanatory axis represented stability of landscape highly related with the rate of the built-up area and road density. The second axis represented the level of fragment highly related with a number of built-up patches. Forest fragmentation patterns of the 13 watersheds were classified for the similarity in forest fragmentation. This study presents the forest management plans including distribution and level of land development and forest conservation.

• Journal of Cadastre & Land InformatiX
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.161-178
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• 2017

Whereas the demand for development of forested areas covering more than 60% of Korean territory, permission on the forest development has been still given from the perspective of effective land utilization rather than conservation. As the assessment of large forested areas usually focuses more on forest structure, it has its limitation of observing and analyzing the interior change in forest in this way. This study was aimed at computing landscape metrics using a presence vegetation map and FRAGTSTATS 4.2 and analyzing vegetation mosaics. Colonies in native vegetation were classified into a series of major groups and sub-groups based on the native species within the colonies. The colonies were investigated by analyzing a suite of landscape metrics - Core Area, Percentage of Landscape, Number of Patches, Patch Density, Largest Patch Index, Total Edge, Edge Density, Landscape Shape Index, Mean Patch Area, Euclidean Nearest Neighbor. In the Chungnam province major groups and sub-groups of colonies classified based on the proportion of pine and oak species, and pine species was the principal one in terms of distribution area. As for the competition between pines and oaks, while the coverage of pine-centered colonies were three times larger than those of oak-centered ones, pine colonies showed the greater number of patches and therefore higher fragmentation than oaks at the major group level. For the sub-groups, the largest coverage colonies were not only indicated by Pinus densiflora-Quesrcus mongolica colonies among P. densiflora-centered colonies, Q. accutissima colonies among Q. accutissima-centered ones, Q. accutissima-P. densiflora colonies among Q. accutissima-centered ones, Q. mongolica colonies among Q. mongolica-centered ones, P. thumbergii colonies among P. thumbergii-centered ones, and Q. serrata-Q. acutissima colonies among Q. serrata-centered ones, but also revealed more severely mosaicked than other smaller colonies. The overall mosaicking degree estimated by landscape metrics was considered useful for monitoring and investigating vegetation. However, in order to develop management strategy based on analyzing the reason for the mosaicking process and anticipating a trend in vegetation succession, it is essential to further study about ecological characteristics of each colony in the vegetation.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.168-182
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• 2019

The objectives of this study were to examine the production processes and methods of "Forest Type Map Actualization Production (Database (DB) Construction Work Manual)" (Work Manual) identify issues associated with the production processes and methods, and suggest solutions for them by applying evaluation items to a 1:5k digital forest type map. The evaluation items applied to a forest type map were divided into zoning and attributes, and the issues associated with the production processes and methods of Work Manual were derived through analyzing the characteristics of the stand structure and fragmentation by administrative districts. Korea is divided into five divisions, where one is set as the area changed naturally and the other four areas set as the area changed artificially. The area changed naturally has been updated every five years, and those changed artificially have been updated annually. The fragmentation of South Korea was analyzed in order to examine the consistency of the DB established for each region. The results showed that, in South Korea, the number of patches increased and the mean patch size decreased. As a result, the degree of fragmentation and the complexity of shapes increased. The degree of fragmentation and the complexity of shapes decreased in four regions out of 17 regions (metropolitan cities and provinces). The results indicated that there were spatial variations. The "Forest Classification" defines the minimum area of a zoning as 0.1ha. This study examined the criteria for the minimum area of a zoning by estimating the divided object (polygon unit) in a forest type map. The results of this study revealed that approximately 26% of objects were smaller than the minimum area of a zoning. The results implied that it would be necessary to establish the definition and the regeneration interval of "Areas Changed Artificially and Areas Changed Naturally", and improve the standard for the minimum area of a zoning. Among the attributes of Work Manual, "Species Change" item classifies terrain features into 52 types, and 43 types of them belong to stocking land. This study examined distribution ratios by extracting species information from the forest type map. It was found that each of 23 species, approximately 53% of species, occupied less than 0.1% of Forested land. The top three species were pine and other species. Although undergrowth on unstocked forest land are classified in the terrain feature system, their definition and classification criteria are not established in the "Forest Classification" item. Therefore, it will be needed to reestablish the terrain feature system and set the definitions of undergrowth.