• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.87-96
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• 2007

After introducing various aspects of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) being planned and established in the US, the author tries to suggest the future direction for the development of similar activities of the NEON to be carried out in the region of East Asia including Korea. A review was carried out in terms of the challenges, major questions, missions, developmental history, and some other specifics of the NEON design. It was further extended to the discussion of the issues for the regional construction of the Ecological Observatory Network (EON) in East Asia. The author hopes that this review could be used as a preliminary guide in ultimately promoting and advancing research, science and technology in conservation and preservation of ecosystems being degraded due to anthropogenic disturbances in the region of East Asia.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.3-19
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• 2014

Large-scale unband development resulted from the rapid economic growth in the Republic of Korea has brought about the habitat destruction for the native animals and plants living in forest and farmland. In order to resolve this problem, it is necessary to consider the natural ecosystem as an organism and to preserve the natural ecosystem by managing ecologically significant habitat consistently. Especially, the local governments should be able to establish regional ecologic networks in consideration of the ecological connectivity and the environmental and ecological excellence, and to reflect them into the local development plans. In regard to this, the methods of the regional ecological network establishment was presented, making use of the results including the national ecological network which assessed the ecological connectivity of the nation and the environmental and ecological assessment results of the Environmental Conservation Value Assessment Map which was designed to analyze and assess the national environmental and ecological values quantitatively. Making use of the case of Gyeongsangnam-do; the results presented that the existing national ecological network in the core region has expanded from $2,986km^2$ to $4,049km^2$ and the existing national ecological network in the buffer region has expanded from $2,940km^2$ to $3,006km^2$. Referring to the regional ecological network in the process of the local development plans could contribute to the increase in biodiversity and the integrated local environmental management including the ecosystem preservation.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.219-227
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• 2023

The US National Science Foundation's National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale program intended to provide open data, samples, and infrastructure to understand changing ecosystems for a period of 30 years. NEON collects co-located measurements of drivers of environmental change and biological responses, using standardized methods at 81 field sites to systematically sample variability and trends to enable inferences at regional to continental scales. Alongside key atmospheric and environmental variables, NEON measures the biodiversity of many taxa, including microbes, plants, and animals, and collects samples from these organisms for long-term archiving and research use. Here we review the composition and use of NEON resources to date as a whole and specific to biodiversity as an exemplar of the potential of national research infrastructure to contribute to globally relevant outcomes. Since NEON initiated full operations in 2019, NEON has produced, on average, 1.4 M records and over 32 TB of data per year across more than 180 data products, with 85 products that include taxonomic or other organismal information relevant to biodiversity science. NEON has also collected and curated more than 503,000 samples and specimens spanning all taxonomic domains of life, with up to 100,000 more to be added annually. Various metrics of use, including web portal visitation, data download and sample use requests, and scientific publications, reveal substantial interest from the global community in NEON. More than 47,000 unique IP addresses from around the world visit NEON's web portals each month, requesting on average 1.8 TB of data, and over 200 researchers have engaged in sample use requests from the NEON Biorepository. Through its many global partnerships, particularly with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, NEON resources have been used in more than 900 scientific publications to date, with many using biodiversity data and samples. These outcomes demonstrate that the data and samples provided by NEON, situated in a broader network of national research infrastructures, are critical to scientists, conservation practitioners, and policy makers. They enable effective approaches to meeting global targets, such as those captured in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.154-171
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• 2010

This study was performed to show criteria of a National Ecological Network (NEN) for South Korea and it was a part of a study of ecological network for broad areas on national land showed by Ministry of Environment of Korea. After 1970s, many european countries presented methods and criteria not on individual protected area but on networking among many habitats. The PEEN (Pan European Ecological Network) and NATURA 2000 are results of those. In South Korea, concepts and mapping metheods of ecological network was studied but those were not applied to the whole national land because the equality and local specialities were not reflected. So, in this study, we presented the criteria composed of forest, river, wildlife and coastal evaluation items in conservation ecology and showed the mapping method which can applied to the national land. After the evaluation on land area which composed of forest, river and wildlife axis. Core areas were $30,616km^2$, buffer zone were $21,870km^2$ and each accounted for 31% and 22% of the national land. Except for Taebaeck-Gangwon region, whole region's core areas were accounted for 20~30% of it and buffer zone were accounted for 20~25% of it, so these can be applied to the national land with equality and local specialities. Forest axis and river axis were clearly linear and connected, but the wildlife axis was dispersed in point form. Therefore, to apply the NEN, a detailed habitat map is important and the interconnected implementation of forest, river, wildlife, and coastal axis is required.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.70-83
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• 1998

With the launch of a new millenium of the 21st century ahead, one of tasks that need to be considered in urban ecological aspect is the understanding of impact of continuing urbanization on urban ecosystem, habitats, and various species of animals and plants. In addition, alternatives and measures to mitigate these impacts including environment restoration should be pursued. In this article, the following points will be reviewed; 1) the definition and significance of an eco-city and "ecological network", 2) the necessity of an eco-network as one of factors composing an eco-city, in the aspects of urban planning and urban ecology, 3) ways to build an urban ecological network and example of foreign countries, 4) as an example of a city in Korea, the present state and impending tasks of the ecological network of Seoul city, and 5) a brief conclusion and suggestion. By providing a basic tool called "an ecological network" for urban space planning, it attempts to contribute in promoting networking of cities (netropolis) and urban biodiversity. It is believed that how to create an ecological network in an artificially developed urban area is a pending issue we are faced with. Herein lies the necessity of natural environment restoration and creation based on the so-called the Third Ecology. Regarding the efforts to return the Nature to urban citizens, there is a need to view the development of a desirable urban ecological network as the starting point and finishing point of the effort. In this way, it is believed that the objectives of urban sustainability through netropolis development would also be achieved.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.131-142
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to detect the protection area around the Geum-buk and Geum-nam Mountains for making a sustainable ecological network. The protection area in the Geum-buk and Geum-nam Mountains was analyzed by using spatial data and a field survey for landscape conservation purposes. A survey scope was fixed using digital elevation model, and the protection area was finally determined based on the parcel map called as the Korea Land Information System (KLIS). Here we have several conclusions in this study. First, spatial data used in this study were a map of ecological and natural degree (MEND), forest distribution map, elevation map, slope map, and several maps for the protection area assigned by laws regarding to the natural resources. Second, we used 4 alternatives to determine the best choice for showing the ecological network in the study area. One alternative (alt. 3) of 4 ones was finally chosen as the best condition for making the ecological network. The condition in elevation and slope was a little modified to a lower level in alt, 3. The result derived from alt, 3 reflected the continuity and connectivity in the ecological network and we estimate that the protection area can protect the core area using the buffer zone around the ecological network. Finally the parcel-based protection area in the Geum-buk and Geum-nam Mountains had $493.92km^2$ of the core area, and $233.99km^2$ of the buffer zone, which means the parcel-based protection area increased by $97.76km^2$ in the core area, but decreased by $76.61km^2$ as of in the topographical map.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.67-81
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• 2018

We tried to analyze qualitatively a total of 110 the research papers which were related domestic ecological restoration technologies about 15 years through semantic network analysis in social network analysis. In order to understand the research trends of ecological restoration technologies, we analyzed the degree centrality and betweenness centrality of the Stream/Wetland, Slope, Soil/Others fields selected as Word Cloud. As a result, ecological restoration technologies have been changed. They were focused on the restoration of species or their habitats in the past. However, they have been evolved into the detailed systems to respond in unpredictable natural disasters and climate change, high-resolution image implementation technology to accurately grasp the practical environment and methods related to environmental restoration for human in urban ecosystem. In the future, investment and technology for the ecosystem restoration field will be continuously demanded for the symbiosis of human beings and species in the damaged ecosystem. Therefore, the research trend of ecological restoration technologies should be provided as reliable guidelines when decision makers establish the policy direction or when researchers select their subjects.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Environmental Biology Conference
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• 2004.12a
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• pp.68-69
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• 2004

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.187-192
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• 2023

The United States (US) National Science Foundation's (NSF's) National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale observation facility, constructed and operated by Battelle, that collects long-term ecological data to better understand and forecast how US ecosystems are changing. All data and samples are collected using standardized methods at 81 field sites across the US and are freely and openly available through the NEON data portal, application programming interface (API), and the NEON Biorepository. NSF led a decade-long design process with the research community, including numerous workshops to inform the key features of NEON, culminating in a formal final design review with an expert panel in 2009. The NEON construction phase began in 2012 and was completed in May 2019, when the observatory began the full operations phase. Full operations are defined as all 81 NEON sites completely built and fully operational, with data being collected using instrumented and observational methods. The intent of the NSF is for NEON operations to continue over a 30-year period. Each challenge encountered, problem solved, and risk realized on NEON offers up lessons learned for constructing and operating distributed ecological data collection infrastructure and data networks. NEON's construction phase included offices, labs, towers, aquatic instrumentation, terrestrial sampling plots, permits, development and testing of the instrumentation and associated cyberinfrastructure, and the development of community-supported collection plans. Although colocation of some sites with existing research sites and use of mostly "off the shelf" instrumentation was part of the design, successful completion of the construction phase required the development of new technologies and software for collecting and processing the hundreds of samples and 5.6 billion data records a day produced across NEON. Continued operation of NEON involves reexamining the decisions made in the past and using the input of the scientific community to evolve, upgrade, and improve data collection and resiliency at the field sites. Successes to date include improvements in flexibility and resilience for aquatic infrastructure designs, improved engagement with the scientific community that uses NEON data, and enhanced methods to deal with obsolescence of the instrumentation and infrastructure across the observatory.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.97-114
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• 2019

This study aims to analyze the effect of urban ecosystem restoration projects by evaluating the short-term restoration performance of the project sites, from both qualitative and quantitative evaluations. In this study, for the qualitative evaluation, we derived the evaluation frame from previous studies and literature. For the quantitative evaluation, the changes in ecological connectivity after the restoration project were described using landscape permeability and network analysis. In addition, changes in habitat quality after the restoration project were evaluated by using InVEST Habitat Quality Model. These evaluations were applied to the three natural madang (ecological restoration) projects and two ecosystem conservation cooperation projects. As a result, three categories, 10 indicators, and 13 sub-indicators were derived from literature as the evaluation frame for this study. In the case of quantitative evaluation of restoration performance, habitat quality increased by 45% and ecological connectivity by 37% in natural-madang, and habitat quality by about 12% and ecological connectivity by about 19% in ecosystem conservation cooperation projects. This implies that the ecological restoration project can increase the ecological connectivity and the habitat quality of degraded sites even in a short period of time by improving the land-cover and land use. The results by applying the evaluation frame indicated that ecological and environmental factors and the ecological functions were improved by the restoration works, even though the magnitude of performances were diverse depending on the specific evaluation items, project type, and site characteristics. This study clarified that the success of ecological restoration project should be assessed by both of the short-term and long-term goals, which can be achieved by the maintenance and sustainable management, respectively.