• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.345-352
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• 2023

Recently, the risk of snow disasters has been increasing South Korea. The damages of heavy snow were categorized into direct and indirect. Direct damage is usually the collapse of buildings as houses, greenhouse or barns. Indirect damage is various, for example, traffic congestion, traffic acident, drop damage, and so on. In South Korea, direct damage is severe in rural area, mosty collapse of greenhouse or barns. However, indirect damage such as traffic accident is mostly occurred in urban area. Therefore, the regional characteristics should be considered when vulnerability is evaluated. Therefore, in this study, the PSR and DPSIR method were applied by regional scale in South Korea. The PSR evaluation method is divided into pressure, state, and reaction index. however, the DPSIR evaluation method is divided into Driving force, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response index. the DPSIR evaluation method is divided into Driving force, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response index. Data corresponding to each indicator were collected, and the weight was calculated using the entropy method to calculate the snowfall vulnerability index by regional scale in South Korea. Calculated heavy snow damage vulnerabilities from the two methods were compared. The calculated vulnerabilities were validated using the recent snow damage in South Korea from 2018 to 2022. Snow vulnerability index calculated using the DPSIR method showed more reliable results. The results of this study could be utilized as an information to prepare the mitigation of heavy snow damage and to establish an efficient snow removal response system.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.227-235
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• 2015

Food-Health indicators have been developed and utilized internationally in the 'Food' domain of environment and health indicators. In Korea, however, Food Safety Health Indicators which are in the introductory stage had been developed separately from Environmental Health Indicators. The aim of the current study is to suggest feasible applications of the domestic Food Safety Health Indicators as a case study. We introduced 3 possible applications which are as follows: 1) production of two types of Integrated Food Safety Health Index; 2) conduction of correlation analysis between the Integrated Food Safety Health Index and Food Safety Health Indicators; 3) conduction of regression analysis to evaluate the relationship between the Integrated Food Safety Health Index and socioeconomic status. As a result, we provided the calculated Integrated Food Safety Health Index I and Integrated Food Safety Health Index II, which represents the regional food safety level in relative and absolute terms, respectively. Integrated Food Safety Health Index I was significantly correlated with the outbreaks of food-borne diseases (caused by Campylobacter jejuni, Bacillus cereus, Salmonella spp. and unknown cause) and incidence of E.coli infections. Integrated Food Safety Health Index II significantly decreased as the proportion of foreigners and women increased, and increased as the population density increased. Utilization of such Integrated Food Safety Health Indicators may be helpful in understanding the overall domestic food safety level and identifying the indicators which must be considered with priorities to enhance the food safety levels regionally and domestically. Furthermore, analyzing the association between Integrated Food Safety Health Index and factors other than food safety could be useful in conducting risk management and identifying susceptible populations. Food Safety Health Indicators can be useful in other applications, and may serve as a supporting material in establishing or modifying policy plans to enhance food safety. Therefore, keen interests by researchers accompanied by further studies on food safety health indicators are needed.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.131-144
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• 2019

The purpose of study was to determine the hygrophyte index of each plant(HIP) considering the moisture environment condition (MEC) of the native plants on the downstream slope of the fill dam and evaluate its applicability which to develop a method to search for leaks and saturated zones of the fill dam for status evaluation of precision safety diagnosis. The HIP was weighted average and consisted of 19 ranks. The weighted average was calculated according to the following three procedures: First, the linear assumption was made according to the actual habitat environmental conditions, the second one was weighted to 10% of the optimal habitat condition, and finally the average value of the distribution range values. The Hygrophyte index of vegetation at each plot (HIV) was obtained from the Sinheung reservoir (Yesan-gun, Chungcheongnam-do) using the results of vegetation survey of the Sinheung reservoir with precision safety diagnosis and suggested the use of the hygrophyte index of the cultivated vegetation. The average HIP range of plant species that emerged in 50 survey sites on the downstream slope of the Sinheung reservoir is 2.99 to 3.56. The coefficient of variation showed a large difference depending on the appearance of the leakage indicator plant(LIP) species. The range of HIV is 2.80 to 4.26, the mean value is 3.37, standard deviation is 0.37 and the coefficient of variation is 9.7%. As a result, the value of the coefficient of variation showed a large difference depending on the appearance of the plant species.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.364-378
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• 2015

As safety Issue becomes one of the hot topics, practical researches and feasible policies are in needs not only for central government but also local officers. The previous studies focused on organizational or institutional approaches and on functional efficiencies, especially how to integrate disaster data at every stage of disaster from preparedness to recovery. Physical and social environments differ from among others, top-down disaster management plan cannot work, and therefore more practical statistics and survey is required to prepare the safety management plan for local government. We aim to suggest a safety environment survey framework and to apply it to two guns (Muan and Goheung). We considered main factors of the framework based on legal requirement for safety index and four stages of disaster progress. Two guns are located in remote area and have a population who are weak to disaster. Action items were drawn from the survey and analysis from the framework respectively. We expect this framework to be expanded to include more urbanized and complex areas.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.51-61
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• 2020

Drought events are not clear when those start and end compared with other natural disasters. Because drought events have different timing and severity of damage depending on the region, various studies are being conducted using satellite images to identify regional drought occurrence differences. In this study, we investigated the applicability of drought assessment using the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite images. The ESI is an indicator of agricultural drought that describes anomalies in actual and reference evapotranspiration (ET) ratios that are retrieved using remotely sensed inputs of Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Leaf Area Index (LAI). However, these approaches have a limited spatial resolution when mapping detailed vegetation stress caused by drought, and drought hazard in the actual crop cultivation areas due to the small crop cultivation in South Korea. For these reasons, the development of a drought index that provides detailed higher resolution ESI, a 500 m resolution image is essential to improve the country's drought monitoring capabilities. The newly calculated ESI was verified through the existing 5 km resolution ESI and historical records for drought impacts. This study evaluates the performance of the recently developed 500 m resolution ESI for severe and extreme drought events that occurred in South Korea in 2001, 2009, 2014, and 2017. As a result, the two ES Is showed high correlation and tendency using Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis. In addition, it will provide the necessary information on the spatial resolution to evaluate regional drought hazard assessment and and the small-scale cultivation area across South Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.7-19
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• 2017

Recently, the incidence of disasters and safety incidents is increasing rapidly, and the interest and demands of the people are increasing. In particular, traffic accidents in Korea are decreasing due to the continuous efforts of the government and the local governments, but still higher than the OECD average. In response to such demands of the times, the 'Regional Safety Index', a numerical value that quantifies the level of safety of each local government, is being publicized every year to awaken public awareness. The Regional Safety Index covers seven categories of accidents (traffic accidents, crimes, suicide, infectious diseases, fire, safety accidents, and natural disasters) in local governments. But, this study focuses on the traffic accident area and analyzed. The target local government is Ulju county of Ulsan Metropolitan City. Based on the traffic accident statistical data of Ulju county, the analysis of the traffic accidents and vulnerable points were analyzed. Among them, 3 key improvement districts were selected and 15 vulnerable branches were selected for each key improvement district. Next, we prepared measures for improvement of each accident vulnerable site through analysis of geographic information through traffic data related to traffic accidents and interview with related organizations. In addition, the improvement measures are divided into the structural infrastructure improvement, the institutional improvement, and the traffic safety culture movement from the viewpoint of traffic accident prevention. Finally, the implications of this study are to clarify the duties and roles of the relevant departments in the municipality, based on the implementation schedule of the improvement projects for the prevention of traffic accidents and the budget plan. In addition, it is very important that the participating agencies involved in traffic accidents and the private sector participate in the project.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.26-38
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• 2022

Purposes: We analyzed the profitability determinants of regional public hospitals during the entire period between 2010 and 2020 and the period before and after COVID-19. We intended to provide fundamental data for developing publicness evaluation index and task of establishing and expanding regional public hospitals. Methodology: The financial and non-financial information of the regional public hospitals were used as the main analysis data; The financial data was established by the Center for Public Healthcare Policy of National Medical Center, and the non-financial data by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. T-test and regression analysis were used. Findings: The results can be summarized in two. First, the main determinants of profitability of the regional public hospitals were appeared to be the total asset turnover rate and the labor cost rate. Second, during the COVID-19 pandemic in the regional public hospitals, the number of sickbeds, the number of isolation rooms, the total asset turnover rate and the labor cost rate appeared to be the factor worsening the profitability. Practical Implication: The results of this study suggests that the management of the regional public hospitals is not aiming for the profit making, but it performs the functions as the community healthcare safety net such as controlling infectious diseases.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.240-246
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• 2017

Objectives: This study was conducted to evaluate the vulnerability of the human health sector to $PM_{10}$ due to climate change in Incheon over the period of 2005-2014. Methods: Vulnerability to $PM_{10}$ consists of the three categories of climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The indexes for climate exposure and sensitivity indicate positive effects, while adaptive capacity shows a negative effect on vulnerability to $PM_{10}$. The variables in each category were standardized by the rescaling method, and respective relative regional vulnerability was analyzed through the vulnerability index calculation formula of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Results: Regions with a high exposure index were the western and northern urban areas with industrial complexes adjacent to a highway, including Bupyong-gu and Seo-gu. Major factors determining the climate exposure index were the $PM_{10}$ concentration, days of $PM_{10}$ >= $100{\mu}g/m^3$, and $PM_{10}$ emissions. The regions showing a high sensitivity index were urban regions with high populations; these commonly had a high mortality rate for related diseases and vulnerable populations. Conclusions: This study is able to support regionally adjusted adaptation policies and the quantitative background of policy priority since it provides information on the regional health vulnerability to $PM_{10}$ due to climate change in Incheon.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.319-328
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• 2021

Purpose: Recently, a large social disaster has called for the need to diagnose social disaster safety, and the Ministry of Public Administration and Security calculates and publishes regional safety ratings such as regional safety index and national safety diagnosis every year. The existing safety diagnosis system uses equal intervals or normal distribution to grade risk maps in a uniform manner. Method: However, the equidistant technique can objectively analyze risk ratings, but there is a limit to classifying risk ratings when the distribution is skewed to one side, and the z-score technique has a problem of losing credibility if the population does not follow a normal distribution. Because the distribution of statistical data varies from indicator to indicator, the most appropriate rating should be applied for each data distribution. Result: Therefore, in this paper, we analyze the data of disaster indicators and present a comparison and suitable method for traditional equidistant and natural brake techniques to proceed with optimized grading for each indicator. Conclusion: As a result, three of the six new indicators were applied differently from conventional grading techniques

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.199-208
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• 2011

Environment standards can be used as a foundation of environment administration (specific expression of political goals or quantitative evaluation standards of political effects). When environment adminstration improves severe air or water pollution rapidly, the environment standard can work effectively to show the goals specifically and clearly. The environment index which is designed to evaluate environment systems, should be established to express the environment system generally. To realize sustainable development, the sustainable indexes usually consisting of these three areas in that harmony of environment, economy and society are required. In this research, sustainable environmental indicators to understand the characteristics and to compare likes theme of environmental conditions in international and national level indicators, regional environmental management plan to promote the management by objectives are to provide the basic data. It is desirable for the environmental policies to work harmoniously with direct control, use of economic means and voluntary methods. Regarding the evaluation of environmental index, the action results of civilian's or individual's activities are needed to be reflected into the evaluation.