• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.1047-1056
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• 2016

This study aims to provide managerial implications for provincial parks through an analysis on visitors' characteristics and motivational factors. The information was collected by surveying 290 visitors. The survey questionnaire consisted of questions regarding visitors' socioeconomic characteristics, characteristics of their travel behavior, visitors' motivation to visit the park, and the degree of satisfaction derived from visiting the park. Results show that most respondents appeared not to collect any information on the park prior to their visit. It was also seen that most visitors do not visit other tourist sites nearby, and are not aware of the Gochang UNESCO biosphere, which indicates that Gochang-gun, which is responsible for park management, needs to make more efforts to promote the park. A factor analysis on the visitors' motivation to visit the park extracted three factors to visit the Seonunsan Provincial Park: 'to hike,' 'to experience and observe nature,' i.e., nature learning field trip and camping, and 'to build and nurture bonding with family and friends.' To examine the effect of these various motivational factors had on the visitors' satisfaction level upon visiting the park, we conducted a multiple regression analysis with the three extracted factors to visit the park and the respondents' socioeconomic characteristics as independent variables, and the degree of recommendation of visiting the park as a dependent variable. The result shows found that, of the three travel factors, only the 'hiking' factor statistically significantly affected the degree of recommendation of visiting the park. This result suggests that the Seonunsan Provincial Park only satisfied hikers and failed to meet the demands for nature experience and observation. It is therefore suggested that the park managers develop new experience-based tourism programs, such as guided tours conducted by professional eco-interpreters.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.223-234
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• 2007

The study, executed with Hallasan National Park, which deserves to be a typical ecotourism destination, aims to provide basic information on park management for early establishment of ecotourism in a national park by assessing its visitors' behavior and satisfaction with a nature trail established as a series of an environmental interpretation program. The questionnaire survey was conducted at Eorimok Square in the weekday and on the weekend for two months of August and September in 2006, and finally 144 valid samples were used for the analysis. As a result of the research, it revealed that the demographic characteristics of the visitors to Hallasan National Park tended to coincide with those of the visitors to other national parks In Korea. On the whole, it showed their low recognition level of nature trails built up in national parks and less experience in using them. However, the visitors' satisfaction level and intention of re-visit, and recommendation to others were comparatively higher after actually using the nature trail at the site of Hallasan National Park, which hints at the possibility of national parks' much weightier role as the ground for ecology education and the functional expansion of the environmental interpretation-related facilities and programs. As for the attributes having effects on users' satisfaction with a nature trail, substantial aspects such as accessibility, safety, uniqueness and interest in environmental interpretation, and educational quality as well as physical facility management were revealed to have equal effects on users' satisfaction level, so there still remain a lot of pending issues over the reality of national parks in the initial stage of ecotourism staying at the level of the introduction and establishment of the facilities for environmental interpretation. This research had surveyed visitors to Hallasan National Park and limited to the nature trail only. For more systematic and practical ecological management of a national park, the in-depth understanding of the attributes affecting satisfaction of ecotourists, including nature trails and other environmental interpretation programs, and more sophisticated measuring tools are needed.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.113-124
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to analyze community members' perception due to impacts on use and development of Dulegil in Bukhansan National Park. The study was conducted by questionnaire survey sent to community members of the vicinity of Dulegil. Average score of positive impact on the local community was 3.2. Positive impacts mentioned by community members were 'heightened pride in their community with increased community image' and 'improvement of landscape and natural environment.' Improved residents' awareness of landscape and natural environment indicated that Dulegil almost accomplished intended goal of preservation of ecosystem. However, actual effects on ecosystem preservation and local economy were not perceptible yet. Score of negative impact was 2.8 on average. 'Traffic congestion' and 'increase in noise level' were considered the most serious among the negative impacts. Environmental pollution and destruction of vegetation in the lowland were deemed relatively bad. Regarding resident awareness of community, those in their 50s and older were quite satisfied with the community. However, young people showed lower level of satisfaction. In order to satisfy all ages, infrastructure and programs for the youth should be in place. To minimize negative awareness of impacts of Dulegil, visitor's attitude should be changed, and education and training on the value and mind set of horizontal hiking are required.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.571-579
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• 2019

To minimize the damage from chemical accidents, a risk management plan (RMP) has been implemented since 2015. According to this regulation, operators who handle more than the designated quantity of the accident preparedness chemicals should provide emergency response information to the public within the affected areas of accidents. The information, including chemicals, affected areas and evacuation instructions should be provided to the public in advance so that they can evacuate immediately in the event of a chemical accident. Currently, the information notification can be provided in various methods by being registered in the notification system, sent with written documents or delivered directly to the public. To examine the status of the operation method, this study analyzed similar cases overseas, investigated the degree of awareness of providing information through the number of the annual visitor of the Information Provision System, and obtained survey results from some residents. This current operation method are problems because the public, who do not have sufficient information about chemicals, do not understand the emergency information properly or it is difficult to recognize where the residents should find this information because of the convenient operation based on the information provider. In this study, measures were proposed to minimize the damage by making it easier for the public to understand the emergency information and the information communicated appropriately in advance by dividing them into an information providing method and post management.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.779-788
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• 2014

This study, as a case where the environmental conflict and dispute arose between the use and the conservation as in the other protected areas in Korea, took the first step to build ecological citizenship to solve various and complicated issues in a fundamental level by providing a basic information on differentiated environmental perceptions of the locality and the visitors of Seoraksan National Park. The questionnaire survey was employed on September 6th and 7th with 150 residents of the park area and 200 visitors of Osaek-Daechungbong trail. Total number of 13 survey questions was introduced using Dunlap and Liere's NEP index. The result shows that the perception of 'balance of nature' was more dominant to the perception of 'humans over nature' and the perception to the 'limits to growth' was also somewhat positive in both groups. The differences in environmental perceptions between the groups exist; the visitor group tended to have more positive level of acceptance of NEP views. Such differences in perceptions suggest that a different normative approach should be taken to the residents of the national park with less pro-environment in their perceptions when policy making. It thus seemed possible that ecological citizenship could be realized since the younger and the higher education level are, the more pro-environment. The findings of the research may cause some concerns however, because the study has been confined as a case study with basic understanding of environmental perceptions and its differences between the interest groups. More extensive research is required to confirm if this is generalized.

• The Journal of the Korean Institute of Forest Recreation
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.35-48
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• 2018

This research was carried out to provide a good quality forest healing program as a basic source of development by researching the general characteristics of users of Geiji Mountain in North Jeolla Province, the recognition of forest healing and regional preference programs. As a result of the survey, Geigisan Mountain is used as a natural place for recreation and leisure of residents of Jeonju. The most important factors in the selection of forest healing programs for visitors were the activities, organization and chronology of the program, and the main purpose was to improve health. Week-by-week programs utilizing weekends were preferred for management of forest healing programs. It was revealed that sports programs prefer to enjoy natural scenery, forest experience programs, healing programs, forest therapy programs, meditation programs, and listening to forest music. The outcome of this study is expected to be used as a basic source for developing and researching a program for forest healing in the area of Mt. Meanwhile, the limit on the composition of suitable forest healing programs according to preference is required for continuous and continuous integrated study of the forest healing program for the future of the forest healing program.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.406-414
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• 2016

This study examined the factors by which people choose auto-camping as their primary leisure activity after conducting a questionnaire survey of the visitors to the Chiaksan national park Guryong auto-campground. The majority of the visitors were employed (60%) in their 30s and 40s (85%) with relatively high education (88% of which had bachelor's degree or higher) and income levels (87% of which had family income greater than KRW30 million). Most visitors were family group visitors (82%), and for many visitors, auto-camping appeared to be their primary leisure activity as 24% of the respondents said that they visited auto-campground more than 10 times a year. Only 18% of the visitors had auto-camped for longer than 5 years, indicating that auto-camping is a relatively new leisure activity that has become popular in recent times. Factor analysis with 19 items that measured the degree of agreement on the relative advantages of auto-camping extracted four latent factors that affected the selection of auto-camping as a leisure activity: factor 1 (refreshment through contact with nature), factor 2 (novelty and a sense of accomplishment), factor 3 (convenience), and factor 4 (entertainment). Results of regression analysis that examined the effects of the four extracted factors on the visitors' level of satisfaction on auto-camping (measured by the number of visits to auto-campgrounds per year) indicated that 'refreshment through contact with nature' was the most critical factor when deciding to select auto-camping as their leisure activity. 'Novelty and a sense of accomplishment' and 'convenience' were also statistically significant -but to a lesser degree, whereas 'entertainment' did not statistically significantly affect the visitors' decision. These results suggest that, for designing and managing auto-campgrounds, it is more important to preserve the surrounding nature than to provide more facilities for campers' convenience and entertainment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.69-82
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of Dulegil in Bukhansan National Park in dispersing peak climbing hikers, characterize each section of Dulegil and suggest ideas of improvement. This study was conducted based on the survey completed by visitors in all 21 sections of Dulegil. After the construction of Dulegil, the number of visit to Dulegil grew and it was analyzed that Dulegil attracted new visitors given that the rate of young people(aged 19~30) who visited for the first time was quite high. Regarding the frequency of peak climbing, 7.6% of the respondents said "decreased" and 46.2% said "increased", showing that Dulegil's effect to disperse peak climbing hikers is nominal. Seven qualities were evaluated regarding Dulegil's level of satisfaction. Out of those seven, the quality of recreational place and taking a walk achieved high scores of 3.74 and 3.61 respectively. The quality of culture and history scored the lowest with 3.09. The analysis on the characteristic of each section of Dulegil, reason of visit, and the visitors' level of satisfaction showed that Dulegil is now regarded as a place where they can improve their health through light exercise and walking. In addition, a positive effect can be expected for a long time since there are different ways of utilizing the resources of the National Park, such as getting in touch with nature, preserving ecology, learning history and enjoying beautiful landscapes. If infrastructure and programs specific to each section of Dulegil were improved in a long-term perspective, it would be effective to encourage peak climbers and enjoy the lower parts of the mountain.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.102 no.3
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• pp.315-322
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• 2013

This study was carried out to establish a management program and soil restoration plan through analysis of soil properties and visitor questionnaires in Songrim in Hadong, Korea. Soil bulk density in Songrim was slightly higher in the closed-woodlands ($1.31g/cm^3$) than in the open-woodlands ($1.39g/cm^3$). Soil bulk density in the closed-woodlands was higher in walking trails ($1.74g/cm^3$) than in forest areas ($1.39g/cm^3$), while the rates of pore space were lower in walking trails (42.6%) than in forest areas (50.5%). The soil porosity were lower in the closed-woodlands (34.6%) than in the open-woodlands (42.6%). Soil strength in surface soil was slightly lower in the open-woodlands ($8.5kgf/cm^2$) than in the closed-woodlands ($10.5kgf/cm^2$). The content of organic matter, total nitrogen and exchangeable cations of the woodlands was low compared with the optimum nutrient content for tree growth in Korea forest soil. According to the survey, the objective of visiting in Songrim was to enjoy recreation and landscape views. To conserve pine forest ecosystems in Songrim, the respondents said that it needs to the implement of closed-woodland periods, the establishment of smoking free zone, and the prohibition of garbage throwing and alcohol including disciplinary rules and education. Also the respondents said that pine forest ecosystem in Songrim is relatively sound, but the woodlands require the intensive management to the ecosystem and the introduction of native understory vegetation, such as grasses under pine forest ecosystem. It is recommended to designate the rest-year forest for a proper period in all woodlands to restore the Songrim soil rather than the alternation application between the rest-year for three years or non-rest-year trails, and to open partially the walking trails across the woodlands after the period. In addition, the forest within the woodland is need to designate a long-term rest-year.