• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.42-51
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• 2020

This study was performed to support the 6th forest basic planning by Korea Forest Service as predicting the change of forestland area by the transition of land use type in the future over 35 years in South Korea. It is very important to analyze upcoming forestland area change for future forest planning because forestland plays a basic role to predict forest resources change for afforestation, production and management in the future. Therefore, the transitional interaction between land use types in future of South Korea was predicted in this study using econometrical models based on past trend data of land use type and related variables. The econometrical model based on maximum discounted profits theory for land use type determination was used to estimate total quantitative change by forestland, agricultural land and urban area at national scale using explanatory variables such as forestry value added, agricultural income and population during over 46 years. In result, it was analyzed that forestland area would decrease continuously at approximately 29,000 ha by 2027 while urban area increases in South Korea. However, it was predicted that the forestland area would be started to increase gradually at 170,000 ha by 2050 because urban area was reduced according to population decrement from 2032 in South Korea. We could find out that the increment of forestland would be attributed to social problems such as urban hollowing and localities extinction phenomenon by steep decrement of population from 2032. The decrement and increment of forestland by unbalanced population immigration to major cities and migration to localities might cause many social and economic problems against national sustainable development, so that future strategies and policies for forestland should be established considering such future change trends of land use type for balanced development and reasonable forestland use and conservation.