• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.15-31
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• 2024

The study primarily aims to examine the characteristics of the transition from natural landscape to modern agricultural landscape on the Daesan plain in Dong-myeon, Changwon-si, in the lower reaches of the Nakdong River. The periods covered in the transition include the late Joseon Dynasty, the early Japanese colonial period, and the late Japanese colonial period. The study concluded the following: It was found that the Daesan Plain used to function as a hydrophilic landscape before it formed into a rural landscape. This is characterized by the various water resources in the Plain, primarily by the Nakdong River, with its back marsh tributaries, the Junam Reservoir and Jucheon. To achieve its recent form, the Daesan Plain was subjected to human trial and error. Through installation of irrigation facilities such as embankments and sluices, the irregularly-shaped wetlands were transformed into large-scale farmlands while the same irrigation facilities underwent constant renovation to permanently stabilize the rural landscape. These processes of transformation were similarly a product of typical colonial expropriation. During the Japanese colonial period, Japanese capitalists initiated the construction of private farms which led to the national land development policy by the Governor-General of Korea. These landscape changes are indicative of resource capitalism depicted by the expansion of agricultural production value by the application of resource capital to undeveloped natural space for economic viability. As a result, the hierarchical structure was magnified resulting to the exacerbation of community and economic structural imbalances which presents an alternative yet related perspective to the evolution of landscapes during the Japanese colonial period. In addition, considering Daesan Plain's vulnerability to changing weather conditions, natural processes have also been a factor to its landscape transformation. Such occurrences endanger the sustainability of the area as when floods inundate cultivated lands and render them unstable, endangering residents, as well as the harvests. In conclusion, the Daesan Plain originally took the form of a hydrophilic landscape and started significantly evolving into a rural landscape since the Japanese colonial period. Human-induced land development and geophysical processes significantly impacted this transformation which also exemplifies the several ways of how undeveloped natural landscapes turn into mechanized and capitalized rural landscapes by colonial resource capitalism and development policies.