• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.2_1
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• pp.267-282
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• 2018

Despite the continuous development of phenology detection studies using satellite imagery, verification through comparison with the field observed data is insufficient. Especially, in the case of Korean forests patching in various forms, it is difficult to estimate the start of season (SOS) by using only satellite images due to resolution difference. To improve the accuracy of vegetation phenology estimation, this study reconstructed the large scaled forest type map (1:5,000) with MODIS pixel resolution and produced time series vegetation phenology curves from Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) derived from MODIS images. Based on the field observed data, extraction methods for the vegetation indices and SOS for Korean forests were compared and evaluated. We also analyzed the correlation between the composition ratio of forest types in each pixel and phenology extraction from the vegetation indices. When we compared NDVI and EVI with the field observed SOS data from the Korea National Arboretum, EVI was more accurate for Korean forests, and the first derivative was most suitable for extracting SOS in the phenology curve from the vegetation index. When the eight pixels neighboring the pixels of 7 broadleaved trees with field SOS data (center pixel) were compared to field SOS, the forest types of the best pixels with the highest correlation with the field data were deciduous forest by 67.9%, coniferous forest by 14.3%, and mixed forest by 7.7%, and the mean coefficient of determination ($R^2$) was 0.64. The average national SOS extracted from MODIS EVI were DOY 112.9 in 2014 at the earliest and DOY 129.1 in 2010 at the latest, which is about 0.16 days faster since 2003. In future research, it is necessary to expand the analysis of deciduous and mixed forests' SOS into the extraction of coniferous forest's SOS in order to understand the various climate and geomorphic factors. As such, comprehensive study should be carried out considering the diversity of forest ecosystems in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.66 no.3
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• pp.25-37
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• 2024

Global warming-induced drought inflicts significant socio-economic and environmental damage. In Korea, the persistent drought in the southern region since 2022 has severely affected water supplies, agriculture, forests, and ecosystems due to uneven precipitation distribution. To effectively prepare for and mitigate such impacts, it is imperative to develop proactive measures supported by early monitoring systems. In this study, we analyzed the spatiotemporal changes of multiple evapotranspiration-based drought indices, focusing on the flash drought event in the southern region in 2022. The indices included the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI), Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) considering precipitation and temperature, and the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) based on satellite images. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and SPEI indices utilized temperature and precipitation data from meteorological observation stations, while the ESI index was based on satellite image data provided by the MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite. Additionally, we utilized the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) provided by the North Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a supplementary index to ESI, enabling us to perform more effective drought monitoring. We compared the degree and extent of drought in the southern region through four drought indices, and analyzed the causes and effects of drought from various perspectives. Findings indicate that the ESI is more sensitive in detecting the timing and scope of drought, aligning closely with observed drought trends.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.2
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• pp.1011-1014
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• 2006

Coarse resolution (9 - 50 km pixels) Sea Surface Temperature satellite data are frequently considered adequate for open ocean research. However, coastal regions, including coral reef, estuarine and mesoscale upwelling regions require high-resolution (1-km pixel) SST data. The AVHRR SST data often suffer from navigation errors of several kilometres and still require manual navigation adjustments. The second serious problem is faulty and ineffective cloud-detection algorithms used operationally; many of these are based on radiance thresholds and moving window tests. With these methods, increasing sensitivity leads to masking of valid pixels. These errors lead to significant cold pixel biases and hamper image compositing, anomaly detection, and time-series analysis. Here, after manual navigation of over 40,000 AVHRR images, we implemented a new cloud filter that differs from other published methods. The filter first compares a pixel value with a climatological value built from the historical database, and then tests it against a time-based median value derived for that pixel from all satellite passes collected within ${\pm}3$ days. If the difference is larger than a predefined threshold, the pixel is flagged as cloud. We tested the method and compared to in situ SST from several shallow water buoys in the Florida Keys. Cloud statistics from all satellite sensors (AVHRR, MODIS) shows that a climatology filter with a $4^{\circ}C$ threshold and a median filter threshold of $2^{\circ}C$ are effective and accurate to filter clouds without masking good data. RMS difference between concurrent in situ and satellite SST data for the shallow waters (< 10 m bottom depth) is < $1^{\circ}C$, with only a small bias. The filter has been applied to the entire series of high-resolution SST data since1993 (including MODIS SST data since 2003), and a climatology is constructed to serve as the baseline to detect anomaly events.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.787-799
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• 2018

Accurate and effective mapping is critical step to monitor the spatial distribution and change of flood inundated area in large scale flood event. In this study, we try to suggest methods to use low spatial resolution satellite optical imagery for flood mapping, which has high temporal resolution to cover wide geographical area several times per a day. We selected the Sebou watershed flood in Morocco that was occurred in early 2010, in which several hundred $km^2$ area of the Gharb lowland plain was inundated. MODIS daily surface reflectance product was used to detect the flooded area. The study area showed several distinct spectral patterns within the flooded area, which included pure turbid water and turbid water with vegetation. The flooded area was extracted by thresholding on selected band reflectance and water-related spectral indices. Accuracy of these flooding detection methods were assessed by the reference map obtained from Landsat-5 TM image and qualitative interpretation of the flood map derived. Over 90% of accuracies were obtained for three methods except for the NDWI threshold. Two spectral bands of SWIR and red were essential to detect the flooded area and the simple thresholding on these bands was effective to detect the flooded area. NIR band did not play important role to detect the flooded area while it was useful to separate the water-vegetation mixed flooded classes from the purely water surface.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.25-37
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• 2013

Open biomass burning (excluding biofuels) is an important contributor to air pollution in the Asian region. Estimation of emissions from fires, however, has been problematic, primarily because of uncertainty in the size and location of sources and in their temporal and spatial variability. Hence, more comprehensive tools to estimate wildfire emissions and that can characterize their temporal and spatial variability are needed. Furthermore, an emission processing system that can generate speciated, gridded, and temporally allocated emissions is needed to support air-quality modeling studies over Asia. For these reasons, a biomass-burning emissions modeling system based on satellite imagery was developed to better account for the spatial and temporal distributions of emissions. The BlueSky Framework, which was developed by the USDA Forest Service and US EPA, was used to develop the Asian biomass-burning emissions modeling system. The sub-models used for this study were the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS), CONSUME, and the Emissions Production Model (EPM). Our domain covers not only Asia but also Siberia and part of central Asia to assess the large boreal fires in the region. The MODIS fire products and vegetation map were used in this study. Using the developed modeling system, biomass-burning emissions were estimated during April and July 2008, and the results were compared with previous studies. Our results show good to fair agreement with those of GFEDv3 for most regions, ranging from 9.7 % in East Asia to 52% in Siberia. The SMOKE modeling system was combined with this system to generate three-dimensional model-ready emissions employing the fire-plume rise algorithm. This study suggests a practicable and maintainable methodology for supporting Asian air-quality modeling studies and to help understand the impact of air-pollutant emissions on Asian air quality.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.517-525
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• 2013

Time-series data of Normal Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) obtained by the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS) satellite imagery gives a waveform that reveals the characteristics of the phenology. The waveform can be decomposed into harmonics of various periods by the Fourier transformation. The resulting $n^{th}$ harmonics represent the amount of NDVI change in a period of a year divided by n. The values of each harmonics or their relative relation have been used to classify the vegetation species and to build a vegetation map. Here, we propose a method to estimate the annual amount of carbon absorbed on the forest from the $1^{st}$ harmonic NDVI value. The $1^{st}$ harmonic value represents the amount of growth of the leaves. By the allometric equation of trees, the growth of leaves can be considered to be proportional to the total amount of carbon absorption. We compared the $1^{st}$ harmonic NDVI values of the 6220 sample points with the reference data of the carbon absorption obtained by the field survey in the forest of South Korea. The $1^{st}$ harmonic values were roughly proportional to the amount of carbon absorption irrespective of the species and ages of the vegetation. The resulting proportionality constant between the carbon absorption and the $1^{st}$ harmonic value was 236 tCO2/5.29ha/year. The total amount of carbon dioxide absorption in the forest of South Korea over the last ten years has been estimated to be about 56 million ton, and this coincides with the previous reports obtained by other methods. Considering that the amount of the carbon absorption becomes a kind of currency like carbon credit, our method is very useful due to its generality.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.6_3
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• pp.1187-1196
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• 2017

Despite the continuing effort to estimate the value of function and services of ecosystem, most of the researches has used low and medium resolution satellite imagery such as MODIS or Landsat. It means that the researches to measure the ecosystem service value using VHR (Very High Resolution) satellite imagery have not been performed much, while the source of available VHR imagery is increasing. Thus, the aim of this study is to estimate and compare the result of ecosystem service value over Sejong city, S. Korea, which is one of the rapidly changed city, through the pixel-based and object-based classification analysis using VHR KOMPSAT-3 images, for more specific and precise information. In the result of the classification, forest and grassland were underestimated while agriculture and urban were overestimated in the pixel-based result compared to the object-based result. Furthermore, bare soil area was presented contrasting result that was increased in the pixel-based result, however, decreased in the object-based result. Using those results, ecosystem service values were estimated. The annual ecosystem service values in 2014 were $8.18 million USD(pixel-based) and $8.63 million USD(object-based), however, decreased to $7.80 million USD(pixel-based) and $8.62 million USD(object-based) in 2016. It is expected to use those results as a preliminary data when to make sustainable development plan and policy to improve the quality of life in the local level.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.5_1
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• pp.599-605
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• 2017

Accurate cloud discrimination in satellite images strongly affects accuracy of remotely sensed parameter produced using it. Especially, cloud contaminated pixel over ocean is one of the major error factors such as Sea Surface Temperature (SST), ocean color, and chlorophyll-a retrievals,so accurate cloud detection is essential process and it can lead to understand ocean circulation. However, static threshold method using real-time algorithm such as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) can't fully explained reflectance variability over ocean as a function of relative positions between the sun - sea surface - satellite. In this paper, we assembled a reflectance spectral library as a function of Solar Zenith Angle (SZA) and Viewing Zenith Angle (VZA) from ocean surface reflectance with clear sky condition of Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) identified by NOAA's cloud products and spectral library is used for applying the Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) to detect cloud pixels. We compared qualitatively between AHI cloud property and our results and it showed that AHI cloud property had general tendency toward overestimation and wrongly detected clear as unknown at high SZA. We validated by visual inspection with coincident imagery and it is generally appropriate.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.431-436
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• 2001

Variations in phytoplankton concentrations result from changes of the ocean color caused by phytoplankton pigments. Thus, ocean spectral reflectance for low chlorophyll waters are blue and high chlorophyll waters tend to have green reflectance. In the Korea region, clear waters and the open sea in the Kuroshio regions of the East China Sea have low chlorophyll. As one moves even closer In the northwestern part of the East China Sea, the situation becomes much more optically complicated, with contributions not only from higher concentration of phytoplankton, but also from sediments and dissolved materials from terrestrial and sea bottom sources. The color often approaches yellow-brown in the turbidity waters (Case Ⅱ waters). To verify satellite ocean color retrievals, or to develop new algorithms for complex case Ⅱ regions requires ship-based studies. In this study, we compared the chlorophyll retrievals from NASA's SeaWiFS sensor with chlorophyll values determined with standard fluorometric methods during two cruises on Korean NFRDI ships. For the SeaWiFS data, we used the standard NASA SeaWiFS algorithm to estimate the chlorophyll_a distribution around the Korean waters using Orbview/ SeaWiFS satellite data acquired by our HPRT station at NFRDl. We studied In find out the relationship between the measured chlorophyll_a from the ship and the estimated chlorophyll_a from the SeaWiFs satellite data around the northern part of the East China Sea, in February, and May, 2000. The relationship between the measured chlorophyll_a and the SeaWiFS chlorophyll_a shows following the equations (1) In the northern part of the East China Sea. Chlorophyll_a =0.121Ln(X) + 0.504, R²= 0.73 (1) We also determined total suspended sediment mass (55) and compared it with SeaWiFS spectral band ratio. A suspended solid algorithm was composed of in-.situ data and the ratio (L/sub WN/(490 ㎚)L/sub WN/(555 ㎚) of the SeaWiFS wavelength bands. The relationship between the measured suspended solid and the SeaWiFS band ratio shows following the equation (2) in the northern part of the East China Sea. SS = -0.703 Ln(X) + 2.237, R²= 0.62 (2) In the near future, NFRDI will develop algorithms for quantifying the ocean color properties around the Korean waters, with the data from regular ocean observations using its own research vessels and from three satellites, KOMPSAT/OSMl, Terra/MODIS and Orbview/SeaWiFS.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.325-338
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• 2023

Korean fir (Abies koreana Wilson) is one of the most important environmental indicator tree species for assessing climate change impacts on coniferous forests in the Korean Peninsula. However, due to the nature of alpine and subalpine regions, it is difficult to conduct regular field surveys of Korean fir, which is mainly distributed in regions with altitudes greater than 1,000 m. Therefore, this study analyzed the vegetation change trend of Korean fir using regularly observed remote sensing data. Specifically, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), land surface temperature (LST), and precipitation data from Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievalsfor GPM from September 2003 to 2020 for Hallasan and Jirisan were used to analyze vegetation changes and their association with environmental variables. We identified a decrease in NDVI in 2020 compared to 2003 for both sites. Based on the NDVI difference maps, areas for healthy vegetation and high mortality of Korean fir were selected. Long-term NDVI time-series analysis demonstrated that both Hallasan and Jirisan had a decrease in NDVI at the high mortality areas (Hallasan: -0.46, Jirisan: -0.43). Furthermore, when analyzing the long-term fluctuations of Korean fir vegetation through the Hodrick-Prescott filter-applied NDVI, LST, and precipitation, the NDVI difference between the Korean fir healthy vegetation and high mortality sitesincreased with the increasing LST and decreasing precipitation in Hallasan. Thissuggests that the increase in LST and the decrease in precipitation contribute to the decline of Korean fir in Hallasan. In contrast, Jirisan confirmed a long-term trend of declining NDVI in the areas of Korean fir mortality but did not find a significant correlation between the changes in NDVI and environmental variables (LST and precipitation). Further analyses of environmental factors, such as soil moisture, insolation, and wind that have been identified to be related to Korean fir habitats in previous studies should be conducted. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using satellite data for long-term monitoring of Korean fir ecosystems and investigating their changes in conjunction with environmental conditions. Thisstudy provided the potential forsatellite-based monitoring to improve our understanding of the ecology of Korean fir.