• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.105 no.4
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• pp.401-413
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• 2016

Forest resources utilization and variable disturbance history have been affected the rarity and conservation value of forest relict trees, which served as habitat for forest biodiversity, important carbon stock and cultural role include human and natural history in South Korea. This study was conducted to establish the baseline data for forest resources conservation by clarifying species diversity, spatial distribution and ecological characteristics (individual and habitat) of forest relict trees (DBH > 300 cm) based on the data getting from mountain trail, high resolution aerial photos and field professionals and field survey. As results, 54 taxa (18 family 32 genus 48 species 1 subspecies 3 variety and 2 form) as about 22% of tree species in Korea was identified in the field. 837 individuals of forest relict trees were observed and the majority of the trees was in Pinaceae, deciduous Fagaceae and Rosaceae, which families are abundant in population diversity. High elevation area was important to relict trees as mean altitudinal distribution was 1,200 m a.s.l as likely affected by human activity gradients and mid-steep slope and North aspect was important environment for the trees remain. Many individuals exhibited 'damage larger branch' (55.6%) and consequent relatively lower mean canopy coverages (below 80%). Synthetically, present diversity and abundance of relict forest trees in South Korea were the result of complex process among climate variation, local weather and biological factors and the trees of big and old were estimated to important forest biodiversity elements. In the future, clarifying the role and function of relict trees in forest ecosystem, in- and ex- situ programmes for important trees and habitat, and activities for building the background of conservation policy such as "Guideline for identifying and measurement of forest relict trees".

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.40
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• pp.1-13
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• 1989

The brightness temperature from NOAA AVHRR CH 4 images was examined for the metropolitan Seoul area, the capital city of Korea, to detect the characteristics of the urban heat island for this study. Surface data from 21 meteorological stations were compared with the brightness temperatures Through computer enhancement techniques, more than 20 heat islands could be recognized in South Korea, with 1 km spatii resolution at a scale of 1: 200, 00O(Fig. 3, 4 and 6). The result of the analysis of AVHRR CH 4 images over the metropolitan Seoul area can be summerized as follows (1) The pattern of brightness temperature distribution in the metropolitan Seoul area shows a relatively strong temperature contrast between urban and rural areas. There is some indication of the warm brightness temperature zone characterrizing built-up area including CBD, densely populated residential district and industrial zone. The cool brightness temperature is asociaed with the major hills such as Bukhan-san, Nam-san and Kwanak-san or with the major water bodies such as Han-gang, and reservoirs. Although the influence of the river and reservoirs is obvious in the brightness temperauture, that of small-scaled land use features such as parks in the cities is not features such as parks in the cities is not apperent. (2) One can find a linerar relationshop between the brightenss temperature and air temperature for 10 major cities, where the difference between two variables is larger in big cities. Though the coefficient value is 0.82, one can estimate that factors of the heat islands can not be explained only by the size of the cities. The magnitude of the horizontal brightness temperature differences between urban and rural area is found to be greater than that of horizontal air temperature difference in Korea. (3) Also one can find the high heat island intensity in some smaller cities such as Changwon(won(Tu-r=9.0$^{\circ}$C) and Po-hang(Tu-r==7.1$^{\circ}$~)T. he industrial location quotient of Chang-won is the second in the country and Po-hang the third. (4) A comparision of the enhanced thermal infrared imageries in 1986 and 1989, with the map at a scale of 1:200, 000 for the meotropolitan Seoul area showes the extent of possible urbanization changes. In the last three years, the heat islands have been extended in area. zone characterrizing built-up area including (5) Although the overall data base is small, the data in Fig. 3 suggest that brightness tempeautre could ge utilized for the study on the heat island characteristics. Satellite observations are required to study and monitor the impact of urban heat island on the climate and environment on global scale. This type of remote sensing provides a meams of monitoring the growth of urban and suburban aeas and its impact on the environment.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.221-232
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• 2016

Models to estimate solar radiation have been used because solar radiation is measured at a smaller number of weather stations than other variables including temperature and rainfall. For example, solar radiation has been estimated using the Angstrom-Prescott (AP) model that depends on two coefficients obtained empirically at a specific site ($AP_{Choi}$) or for a climate zone ($AP_{Frere}$). The objective of this study was to identify the coefficients of the AP model for reliable estimation of solar radiation under a wide range of spatial and temporal conditions. A global optimization was performed for a range of AP coefficients to identify the values of $AP_{max}$ that resulted in the greatest degree of agreement at each of 20 sites for a given month during 30 years. The degree of agreement was assessed using the value of Concordance Correlation Coefficient (CCC). When $AP_{Frere}$ was used to estimate solar radiation, the values of CCC were relatively high for conditions under which crop growth simulation would be performed, e.g., at rural sites during summer. The statistics for $AP_{Frere}$ were greater than those for $AP_{Choi}$ although $AP_{Frere}$ had the smaller statistics than $AP_{max}$ did. The variation of CCC values was small over a wide range of AP coefficients when those statistics were summarized by site. $AP_{Frere}$ was included in each range of AP coefficients that resulted in reasonable accuracy of solar radiation estimates by site, year, and month. These results suggested that $AP_{Frere}$ would be useful to provide estimates of solar radiation as an input to crop models in Korea. Further studies would be merited to examine feasibility of using $AP_{Frere}$ to obtain gridded estimates of solar radiation at a high spatial resolution under a complex terrain in Korea.