• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.196-206
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• 2020

Background: The Himalayan forests are of great importance to sustain the nature and community resource demands. These forests are facing pressures both from anthropogenic activities and ongoing global climatic changes. Poor natural regeneration has been considered a major problem in mountainous forests. To understand the population structure and regeneration status of Larix (Larix griffithiana and Larix himalaica), we conducted systematic vegetation surveys in three high-altitude valleys namely Ghunsa (Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, KCA), Langtang (Langtang National Park, LNP), and Tsum (Manaslu Conservation Area, MCA) in Nepal Himalaya. The average values of diameter at breast height (DBH), height, and sapling height were compared for three sites and two species using Kruskal-Wallis test. Population structure was assessed in terms of proportion of seedlings, saplings, and trees. Regeneration was analyzed using graphical representation of frequencies of seedlings, saplings, and trees in histograms. Results: The results showed that the population structure of Larix in terms of the proportion of seedling, sapling, and tree varied greatly in the three study areas. KCA had the highest record of seedling, sapling, and tree compared to other two sites. Seedlings were the least among three forms and many plots were without seedlings. We found no seedling in MCA study plots. The plot level average DBH variation among sites was significant (Kruskal-Wallis χ² = 7.813, df = 2, p = 0.02) as was between species (Kruskal-Wallis χ² = 5.9829, df = 1, p = 0.014). Similarly, the variation in average tree height was significant (Kruskal-Wallis χ² = 134.23, df = 2, p < 0.001) among sites as well as between species (Kruskal-Wallis χ² = 128.01, df = 1, p < 0.001). All the sites showed reverse J-shaped curve but more pronounced for KCA and MCA. In comparing the two species, Larix griffithiana has clear reverse J-shaped diameter distribution but not Larix himalaica. Conclusion: The varied responses of Larix manifested through regeneration status from spatially distinct areas show that regeneration limitations might be more pronounced in the future. In all the three studied valleys, regeneration of Larix is found to be problematic and specifically for Larix griffithiana in MCA and Larix himalaica in LNP. To address the issues of disturbances, especially serious in LNP, management interventions are recommended to sustain the unique Himalayan endemic conifer.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.2_1
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• pp.179-197
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• 2020

Topographic normalization reduces the terrain effects on reflectance by adjusting the brightness values of the image pixels to be equal if the pixels cover the same land-cover. Topographic effects are induced by the imaging conditions and tend to be large in high mountainousregions. Therefore, image analysis on mountainous terrain such as estimation of wildfire damage assessment requires appropriate topographic normalization techniques to yield accurate image processing results. However, most of the previous studies focused on the evaluation of topographic normalization on satellite images with moderate-low spatial resolution. Thus, the alleviation of topographic effects on multi-temporal high-resolution images was not dealt enough. In this study, the evaluation of terrain normalization was performed for each band to select the optimal technical combinations for rapid and accurate wildfire damage assessment using PlanetScope images. PlanetScope has considerable potential in the disaster management field as it satisfies the rapid image acquisition by providing the 3 m resolution daily image with global coverage. For comparison of topographic normalization techniques, seven widely used methods were employed on both pre-fire and post-fire images. The analysis on bi-temporal images suggests the optimal combination of techniques which can be applied on images with different land-cover composition. Then, the vegetation index was calculated from the images after the topographic normalization with the proposed method. The wildfire damage detection results were obtained by thresholding the index and showed improvementsin detection accuracy for both object-based and pixel-based image analysis. In addition, the burn severity map was constructed to verify the effects oftopographic correction on a continuous distribution of brightness values.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.1153-1156
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• 2012

Daegwallyeong area to be formed along the mountainous terrain more above 800 m of sea level is known as the cold zone to occur frequently wind, rain and fog. This study to evaluate the stability of crop production and agricultural production potential in the Daegwallyeong was calculated for the low temperature frequency of occurrence and potential evapotranspiration changes with announce the release of Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) from 1972 to 2009 up to 38 years. Evapotranspiration calculated FAO and other international standard method authorized under the PENMAN-MONTEITH Method was used, and the low temperature onset and frequency of the Gumbel probability density function was used. As a result, the variation of day evaporation for 38 years were showed to respectively width of variation from maximum $9mm\;day^{-1}$ to minimum $0.5mm\;day^{-1}$. The frequency of reappearance to first emergence day that lasts more than 5 days with temperature $5^{\circ}C$ over is 3 April a 50-year frequency, 10 April a 25-year frequency, 20 April a 10-year frequency, 28 April a 5-year frequency, 8 May a 2-year frequency. Psychrotrophic crop to growth temperature more than $5^{\circ}C$ can be secured to stable production with planting after May 8, prior to planting for normal growth can be seen that the risk of growth.

• 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.02a
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• pp.172-172
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• 2011

The interaction between land surface and atmosphere is essentially affected by hydrometeorological variables including soil moisture. Accurate estimation of soil moisture at spatial and temporal scales is crucial to better understand its roles to the weather systems. The KLDAS(Korea Land Data Assimilation System) is a regional, specifically Korea peninsula land surface information systems. As other prior land data assimilation systems, this can provide initial soil field information which can be used in atmospheric simulations. For this study, as an enabling high-resolution tool, weather research and forecasting(WRF-ARW) model is applied to produce precipitation data using GFS(Global Forecast System) with GFS embedded and KLDAS soil moisture information as initialization data. WRF-ARW generates precipitation data for a specific region using different parameters in physics options. The produced precipitation data will be employed for simulations of Hydrological Models such as HEC(Hydrologic Engineering Center) - HMS(Hydrologic Modeling System) as predefined input data for selected regional water responses. The purpose of this study is to show the impact of a hydrometeorological variable such as soil moisture in KLDAS on hydrological consequences in Korea peninsula. The study region, Chongmi River Basin, is located in the center of Korea Peninsular. This has 60.8Km river length and 17.01% slope. This region mostly consists of farming field however the chosen study area placed in mountainous area. The length of river basin perimeter is 185Km and the average width of river is 9.53 meter with 676 meter highest elevation in this region. We have four different observation locations : Sulsung, Taepyung, Samjook, and Sangkeug observatoriesn, This watershed is selected as a tentative research location and continuously studied for getting hydrological effects from land surface information. Simulations for a real regional storm case(June 17~ June 25, 2006) are executed. WRF-ARW for this case study used WSM6 as a micro physics, Kain-Fritcsch Scheme for cumulus scheme, and YSU scheme for planetary boundary layer. The results of WRF simulations generate excellent precipitation data in terms of peak precipitation and date, and the pattern of daily precipitation for four locations. For Sankeug observatory, WRF overestimated precipitation approximately 100 mm/day on July 17, 2006. Taepyung and Samjook display that WRF produced either with KLDAS or with GFS embedded initial soil moisture data higher precipitation amounts compared to observation. Results and discussions in detail on accuracy of prediction using formerly mentioned manners are going to be presented in 2011 Annual Conference of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2016

The objects of this study are to identify values of criterion(vii) and to consider a possibility of application of criterion (vii) of UNESCO World Heritage to Mt. Seoraksan Natural Reserve based on the analysis of the concept of criterion (vii) and justifications of World Heritage sites under criterion (vii). According to the analysis results of 114 Natural Heritage sites under criterion (vii) listed between 1978-2015, detailed values of the criterion and their applied cases were categorized into 10 values. Based on this category, values were drawn that could be applied to Mt. Seoraksan and support the justification of criterion (vii) in three aspects. First, the value of visuality could be applied to Mt. Seoraksan due to its abundance of Scenic Sites, which means it has been recognized as an area with natural beauty by government. Second, the value of comprehensiveness of geomorphological landscape could be applied to Mt. Seoraksan in that it shows all kinds of granite landform in a relatively limited area. Finally, the value of comprehensiveness of geomorphological landscape could be again applied due to its overall mountainous river landscape.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.23-27
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• 2013

The risks of debris flows caused by climate change have increased significantly around the world. Recently, landslide disaster prevention technology is more focused on the failure and post-failure dynamics to mitigate the hazards in flow-prone area. In particular, we should define the soil strength and flow characteristics to estimate the debris flow mobility in the mountainous regions in Korea. To do so, we selected known ancient landslides area: Inje, Pohang and Sangju debris flows. Firstly we measured physical and mechanical properties: liquidity index and undrained shear strength by fall cone penetrometer. From the test results, we found that there is a possible relationship between liquidity index and undrained shear strength, $C_{ur}=(1.2/I_L)^{3.3}$, in the selected areas, even though they were different in geological compositions. Assuming that the yield stress is equal to the undrained shear strength at the initiation of sliding, we examined the flow characteristics of weathered soils in Korea. When liquidity index is given as 1, 1.5 and 3.0, the debris flow motion of weathered soils is compared with that of mud-rich sediments, which are known as low-activity clays. At $I_L=1$, it seems that debris flow could reach approximately 250m after 5 minutes. As liquidity index increased from 1 to 3, the debris flow propagation of weathered soils is twice than that of low-activity clays. It may be due to the fact that soil masses mixed with the ambient water and then highly fragmented during flow, thereby leading to the high mobility. The results may help to predict the debris flow propagation and to develop disaster prevention technology at similar geological settings, especially for the weathered soils, in Korea.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.50 no.10
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• pp.681-690
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• 2017

This study estimated the daily maximum snow depth using the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model in Korean Peninsula. First, the optimal ANN model structure was determined through the trial-and-error approach. As a result, daily precipitation, daily mean temperature, and daily minimum temperature were chosen as the input data of the ANN. The number of hidden layer was set to 1 and the number of nodes in the hidden layer was set to 10. In case of using the observed value as the input data of the ANN model, the cross validation correlation coefficient was 0.87, which is higher than that of the case in which the daily maximum snow depth was spatially interpolated using the Ordinary Kriging method (0.40). In order to investigate the performance of the ANN model for estimating the daily maximum snow depth of the ungauged area, the input data of the ANN model was spatially interpolated using Ordinary Kriging. In this case, the correlation coefficient of 0.49 was obtained. The performance of the ANN model in mountainous areas above 200m above sea level was found to be somewhat lower than that in the rest of the study area. This result of this study implies that the ANN model can be used effectively for the accurate and immediate estimation of the maximum snow depth over the whole country.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.33-43
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• 2003

In South Korea, about 74% of total area is mountainous terrain It is therefore inevitable to make tunnel or cutting slope for road construction. According to a related survey, approximately 2,400 sites of cutting slopes were found from 24 different routes of roadway which is overall 900 km long, implying 2.7 slopes per 1km of roadway on average. Even though safety matter such as the slope failure prevention would be the most important consideration for the construction of cutting slopeslandscape of sloped face is nowadays becoming another important factor due to the growing demand for the driver-friendly road environment Various construction methods which attain this goal should therefore be considered in the design stage of the roadway. The objective of this study is to identify important factors in landscape of sloped-cut roadway using factor analysis. For this, 10 main treatment methods of sloped-cut fact were analyzed. This study employed the LISREL(structural analysis of common variance) model in order to capture the qualitative characteristics of the slope-cut road and examine the relationship between the suey error and the variable(s). As a result, more reasonable landscape evaluation model for the road design and construction was proposed.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.277-286
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• 2017

Mt. Baekdu which located the border of North Korea and China, is known as a potentially active volcano in a typical mountainous terrain. A lahar on the volcanic area is one of the important hazard that can cause the loss of life and property damage. In order to comprehensively address the impact of lahar hazard at Mt. Baekdu, we simulated lahar inundation area using Laharz_py. We assumed 750 m of additional elevation for DEM to draw proximal hazard zone boundary (PHZB) of Mt. Baekdu that H/L ratio are selected 0.10. And lahar volumes for simulation were estimated to $1{\times}10^6$, $5{\times}10^6$, $1{\times}10^7$, $5{\times}10^7$, $1{\times}10^8$, $5{\times}10^8$, $1{\times}10^9m^3$, respectively. In the results, 15 streams are located near a proximal hazard zone boundary, Amnok (Yalu) river (south), Toudaosonghua river, Jinjiang river and Huapi river (west-southwest), Songjiang river, Xiaosha river, Caozi river and Sandaosongjian river (west-northwest), Toudaobai river, Erdaobai river and Sandabai river (north), Wudaobai river-1, -2, -3 (northeast) and Duman (Tumen) river (east). The results of this study can be used as basic data to make a hazard map for reduce the damage that can be caused by volcanic hazards occurred on Mt. Baekdu.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.11-23
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to identify the ecological characteristics and biological interactions between species of the abandoned rice paddy field in mountainous areas and to suggest a management strategy for stable food chain formation and biodiversity enhancement. The study site is located in Uldae wetland of Songchu district Bukhansan National Park, site characteristics and biological habitat characteristics were identified through site survey and literature survey. With regard to physical environment, among geographical features, the Uldae Wetland and the neighborhood inside the basin was a gently sloping area($5{\sim}15^{\circ}$). And 64.0% of basin faced the north. With regard to water environment, the Uldae Wetland was wetland of rainfed paddy field depending on precipitation and the system of stream flowing into the wetland from valley. According to the results of examining flora in plant ecology, in general, they were herbaceous wetland species. 88.6% of existing plants inside the Uldae Wetland basin was a forest in the mountain. And Quercus spp. community and Pinus densiflora community accounted for 64.6% of that, and was dominant. Except for that, Salix koreensis community was distributed. The existing vegetation of Uldae Wetland inhabited wetland species and terrestrialization indicator species, and it was thought that partial terrestrialization inside the Uldae Wetland was in progress after the discontinuation of paddy cultivation, such as the expansion of Salix koreensis distribution area. In the status of appearing faunae in the Uldae Wetland with regard to wildbirds of appearing principal species, The Uldae wetland was based on a abandoned rice paddy field various wildlife, and was a wildlife feeding, spawning, and resting place. The water environment was an important factor in maintaining the wetland living creatures function, habitat of waterbirds and benthic macroinvertebrates, amphibians and odonate are spawning ground and habitat, it was affecting the vegetation ecosystem based on wetlands. In order to maintain the diversity of wildlife, it was important to maintain smooth water supply and water level. A stable food chain will be formed and the Uldae wetland biodiversity will be abundant by establishing the relationship between the species of Uldae wetland, which is abandoned rice paddy field, and the habitat environment favored by species belonging to the ecosystem stepwise linkage. The ecological characteristics of the Uldae wetlands and the relation between the species were analyzed and the environmental conditions were reflected in the planning and management plan of Uldae wetland ecology.