• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.127-133
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• 2015

Interests in ecosystem services have increased and a number of attempts to perform a quantitative valuation on them have been undertaken. To classify the ecosystem types landcover classification maps are generally used. However, some forest types on landcover classification maps have a number of errors. The purpose of this study is to verify the forest types on the landcover map by using a variety of field survey data and to suggest an improved method for forest type classifications. Forest types are compared by overlaying the landcover classification map with the 4th forest type map, and then they are verified by using National Forest Inventory, 3rd National Ecosystem Survey and field survey data. Misclassifications of forest types are found on the forest on the forest type map and farm and other grassland on the landcover map. Some errors of forest types occur at Daegu, Busan and Ulsan metropolitan cities and Gangwon province. The results of accuracy in comprehensive classification show that deciduous forest is 76.1%; coniferous forest is 54.0%; and mixed forest is 22.2%. In order to increase the classification accuracy of forest types a number of remote sensing images during various time periods should be used and the survey period of NFI and the National Forest Inventory and National Ecosystem Survey should be consistent. Also, examining areas with wide forest patch should be prioritized during the field survey in order to decrease any errors.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.99 no.3
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• pp.285-291
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• 2010

Since 2006, the $5^{th}$ National Forest Inventory (NFI) has been implemented to provide forest resources statistics at the national level and at the county level as well. However, it needs a small-area estimator for estimating forest statistics at the county-level due to a small number of samples collected within a county. This study was conducted to evaluate the applicability of a geographical-based synthetic estimator for estimating forest growing stock volumes at the county level. The NFI-field plots surveyed were post-stratified into three forest cover types. In the synthetic estimator, field plots within a geographical-based super-county for each county were used to estimate stratum weights and stratum mean volumes. It was resulted that estimated stratum weights using the synthetic estimation were significantly differ from forest cover maps. The standard errors of estimated mean by the synthetic estimation that ranged from ${\pm}3.5\;m^3$/ha to ${\pm}7.7\;m^3$/ha were more smaller than those (${\pm}7.8\;m^3/ha{\sim}{\pm}24.7\;m^3/ha$) by the direct estimation. This means that the synthetic estimation is possible to provide more precise estimates of mean volumes.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.5_4
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• pp.1155-1164
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• 2023

Currently, the National Forest Inventory (NFI) collects tree information by human, so the range and time of the survey are limited. Research is actively being conducted to extract tree information from a large area using aerial Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) and aerial photographs, but it does not reflect the characteristics of forest areas in Korea because it is conducted in areas with wide tree spacing or evenly spaced trees. Therefore, this study proposed a methodology for generating Digital Surface Model (DSM), Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and Canopy Height Model (CHM) images using aerial LiDAR, extracting the tree height through the local Maxima, and calculating the Diameter at Breath Height (DBH) through the DBH-tree height formula. The detection accuracy of trees extracted through the proposed methodology was 88.46%, 86.14%, and 84.31%, respectively, and the Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of DBH calculated based on the tree height formula was around 5cm, confirming the possibility of using the proposed methodology. It is believed that if standardized research on various types of forests is conducted in the future, the scope of automation application of the manual national forest resource survey can be expanded.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.109 no.3
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• pp.300-312
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• 2020

The growing stocks of young forests that are less than10 years of age have been excluded from the Korean forest resource statistics, despite the existence of standing trees; however, sustainable forest management and carbon removals in the forestry section require complete information regarding forest resources. This study developed a method to estimate the growing stocks for young forests from National Forest Inventory (NFI) data. After reviewing previous research on growth characteristics for young forests, we conducted stem analysis of major species, and examined stand characteristics by site index, based on real yield tables. Our statistical analysis results showed that there were few standing trees with diameters at breast height (DBH) above 6 cm in young stands, and that it would have taken 12 years, on average, to reach 6 cm DBH. This suggests that mean tree height by diameter should be assessed at the root, in order to assess growing stocks for young stands through the NFI. Moreover, the database system should be improved to differentiate tree species, since diverse shrubs, including trees, have been surveyed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.100 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2011

Six commonly used non-linear growth functions were fitted to individual tree height-dbh data of eight major tree species measured by the $5^{th}$ National Forest Inventory in Chungcheong province. A total of 2,681 trees were collected from permanent sample plots across Chungcheong province. The available data for each species were randomly splitted into two sets: the majority (90%) was used to estimate model parameters and the remaining data (10%) were reserved to validate the models. The performance of the models was compared and evaluated by $R^2$, RMSE, mean difference (MD), absolute mean difference (AMD) and mean difference(MD) for diameter classes. The combined data (100%) were used for final model fitting. The results showed that these six sigmoidal models were able to capture the height-diameter relationships and fit the data equally well, but produced different asymptote estimates. Sigmoidal growth models such as Chapman-Richards, Weibull functions provided the most satisfactory height predictions. The effect of model performance on stem volume estimation was also investigated. Tree volumes of different species were computed by the Forest Resources Evaluation and Prediction Program using observed range of diameter and the predicted tree total height from the six models. For trees with diameter less than 30 cm, the six height-dbh models produced very similar results for all species, while more differentiation among the models was observed for large-sized trees.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.348-357
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• 2015

The main purpose of this study is to understand the potential geographic distribution of P. koraiensis, which is known to be one of major economic tree species, based on the RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) 8.5 scenarios and current geographic distribution from National Forest Inventory(NFI) data using ecological niche modeling. P. koraiensis abundance data extracted from NFI were utilized to estimate current geographic distribution. Also, GARP (Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production) model, one of the ecological niche models, was applied to estimate potential geographic distribution and to project future changes. Environmental explanatory variables showing Area Under Curve (AUC) value bigger than 0.6 were selected and constructed into the final model by running the model for each of the 27 variables. The results of the model validation which was performed based on confusion matrix statistics, showed quite high suitability. Currently P. koraiensis is distributed widely from 300m to 1,200m in altitude and from south to north as a result of national greening project in 1970s although major populations are found in elevated and northern area. The results of this study were successful in showing the current distribution of P. koraiensis and projecting their future changes. Future model for P. koraiensis suggest large areas predicted under current climate conditions may be contracted by 2090s showing dramatic habitat loss. Considering the increasing status of atmospheric $CO_2$ and air temperature in Korea, P. koraiensis seems to experience the significant decrease of potential distribution range in the future. The final model in this study may be used to identify climate change impacts on distribution of P. koraiensis in Korea, and a deeper understanding of its correlation may be helpful when planning afforestation strategies.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.185-191
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• 2015

This study presents an estimate of on-site surface fuel loadings composed of coarse woody debris (CWD) using $5^{th}$ National Forest Inventory (NFI) data in South Korea. We classified CWD data into forest type, region and decay class, and used conversion factors by decay class and tonne of oil equivalent developed in the country. In 2010, the total wildfire fuel load of CWD was estimated as 8.9 million TOE; those of coniferous, deciduous and mixed forests were 3.5 million TOE, 2.8 million TOE and 2.6 million TOE, respectively. Gangwon Province had the highest wildfire fuel load of CWD (2.3 million TOE), whereas Seoul exhibited the lowest wildfire fuel load of CWD (0.02 million TOE). Wildfire fuel loads of CWD were estimated as 2.9 million TOE, 1.9 million TOE, 2.4 million TOE and 1.7 million TOE for decay classes I, II, III and IV, respectively. The total wildfire fuel load of CWD corresponded to the calorific value of 8.2 million tons crude oil, 2.46% of that of living trees. Proportionate to the growing stock, total wildfire fuel load of CWD was in a broad distinction by region, while its TOE $ha^{-1}$ was not. This implies that there is no need to establish different guidelines by region for management of CWD. The results of this work provide a baseline study for scientific policy guidelines on preventing wildfires by proposing CWD as wildfire fuel load.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.99 no.3
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• pp.304-311
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• 2010

Korea National Forest Inventory System has been adopting different cluster plot design and new equations to estimate growing stock volumes since 2006. These changes have resulted in volume estimations which show some difference from previous ones. This study is to find out the source of such difference. For this, relevant data was collected from 80 plots of 20 cluster samples according to the cluster plot design applied to 4th and 5th National Forest Inventory. Then growing stock volumes were estimated by using current and previous individual tree volume equations respectively. An investigation was made to detect whether such difference in volume estimates was originated from the changes in cluster plot design or from using different volume equations. T-test results showed that the difference from changes in cluster plot design was negligible. Instead, changes in volume equations had statistically significant effects in volume estimation. Since the volume estimation by the 5th National Forest Inventory would bring overestimation by applying different volume equations, all the volume estimations made prior to 2006 would require necessary modifications for international reporting.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.111 no.4
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• pp.461-472
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• 2022

Natural and anthropogenic factors cause forest types to continuously change. Since the ratio of forest area by forest type is important information for identifying the characteristics of national forest resources, an accurate understanding of the prospect of forest type change is required. The study aim was to use National Forest Inventory (NFI) time-series data to understand the characteristics of forest type change and to estimate future prospects of nationwide forest type change. We used forest type change information from the fifth and seventh NFI datasets, climate, topography, forest stand, and disturbance variables related to forest type change to analyze trends and characteristics of forest type change. The results showed that the forests in Korea are changing in the direction of decreasing coniferous forests and increasing mixed and broadleaf forests. The forest sites that were changing from coniferous to mixed forests or from mixed to broadleaf forests were mainly located in wet topographic environments and climatic conditions. The forest type changes occurred more frequently in sites with high disturbance potential (high temperature, young or sparse forest stands, and non-forest areas). We used a climate change scenario (RCP 8.5) to establish a forest type change model (SVM) to predict future changes. During the 40-year period from 2015 to 2055, the SVM predicted that coniferous forests will decrease from 38.1% to 28.5%, broadleaf forests will increase from 34.2% to 38.8%, and mixed forests will increase from 27.7% to 32.7%. These results can be used as basic data for establishing future forest management strategies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.100 no.3
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• pp.455-465
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• 2011

In order to assess and mitigate climate change, the role of forest biomass as carbon sink has to be understood spatially and quantitatively. Since existing forest statistics can not provide spatial information about forest resources, it is needed to predict spatial distribution of forest biomass under an alternative scheme. This study focuses on developing an upscaling method that expands forest variables from plot to landscape scale to estimate spatially explicit aboveground biomass(AGB). For this, forest stand variables were extracted from National Forest Inventory(NFI) data and used to develop AGB regression models by tree species. Dominant/codominant height and crown density were used as explanatory variables of AGB regression models. Spatial distribution of AGB could be estimated using AGB models, forest type map and the stand height map that was developed by forest type map and height regression models. Finally, it was estimated that total amount of forest AGB in Danyang was 6,606,324 ton. This estimate was within standard error of AGB statistics calculated by sample-based estimator, which was 6,518,178 ton. This AGB upscaling method can provide the means that can easily estimate biomass in large area. But because forest type map used as base map was produced using categorical data, this method has limits to improve a precision of AGB map.