• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.537-546
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• 2013

In the Seoul Metropolitan Area(SMA) photochemical air pollutants, nitrogenic compound and particulate matters have increased substantially due to mobile sources, power plants and so on. Therefore 'Special Act on Seoul Metropolitan Air Quality Improvement' was enacted on 2003 in order to improve air quality in the SMA. According to the Special Act, Central and local government have developed the state implementation plan(SIP) to reduce air pollutant emissions from various local sources. One of the key elements of the SIP development is the air quality modeling since modeling results can be used to establish emissions control strategies as well as to demonstrate attainment of air quality goals for ozone, particulate matter, and so on. Air quality modeling, therefore, can be usefully utilized to investigate the effects of government's efforts according to control strategies or measures. Using the air quality model, we can determine whether the implementation plan should be revised or not. A number of questions, however, has been raised concerning accuracy, consistency and transparency of modeling results because if we do not trust modeling results, all the measures dependent on modeling becomes in vain. So, without dealing with these questions, we can not guarantee the reliability and utilizability of air quality modeling results. In this study, we tried to establish standard methodology for air quality modeling in order to ensure consistency and transparency of modeling results used in the development and evaluation of national air policy. For this purpose, we established air quality modeling guideline to provide or recommend modeling procedures, vertical and horizontal domains, input data of meteorological and air quality modeling and so on.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.2_1
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• pp.121-137
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• 2020

Data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) satellite and national emission inventories were used in this study to analyze air quality in East Asia and estimate the impact of domestic and foreign emissions on South Korea's air quality, based on which future emissions were predicted. The concentration trends of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) in East Asia from 2005 to 2015 showed that both substances were highest in North East China (NEC), followed by South East China (SEC) and Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA). The average SO₂ concentration was 1.63 times higher in NEC than in SMA. Analysis on the ratios of NO₂/SO₂ and NO_x/SO_x provides an indirect picture of the effect of transboundary air pollutants on atmospheric composition in Korea. The concentration ratio of NO₂/SO₂ in all study areas peaked in 2013 and SMA's emission ratio of NO_x/SO_x increased in 2015 by over 22% from 2013. Despite the reduction in domestic emissions, the concentration-to-emission ratios (NO₂/NO_x, SO₂/SO_x) rose gradually, which implies that other factors besides domestic emissions (e.g., foreign sources, lifetime, etc.) influence air quality in SMA. We estimated future emissions of NO_x and SO_x in SMA to be 296.2 and 39.0 ktons in 2025 and 284.4 and 33.8 ktons in 2035, respectively. Application of the inter-comparison techniques of this study to the data from the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Instrument (GEMS) is expected to provide concrete information which can be used to improve national emission inventories and figure out factors and sources that affect domestic air quality.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.34-41
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• 2018

This paper studied balanced regional development focused on employment in Korea, by analyzing regional disparity between regional and industrial employment. A Gini-coefficient decomposition method and Panel Granger causality test were conducted, using raw data of the Census on Establishments reported by the Statistics Korea. The regional and industrial disparity of employment, based on the Gini-coefficient decomposition method, have increased by year. However, the growth rates of disparity are on the decrease. Most of employment disparity occurred from regional disparity between SMA (Seoul Metropolitan Area) and Non-SMA. Industrial disparity are occurred mainly by the service industry. The amount of contribution to the whole disparity of inter/intra regional employment was differed by each industrial sector. Also the causal relationship between employment growth of manufacture and that of service industry was analyzed by Panel Granger causality test. In national level, the employment growth in manufacture industry has conduced that in service industry. On the other hand, in the Non-SMA, only the employment growth in manufacture industry has augmented that in service industry. In conclusion, to reduce employment disparity, the strategy for balanced regional development should be emphasized. Different strategies are needed across regions and industries. Basically creating new job in the Non-SMA is inevitable. In view of stable employment, manufacture industry is more desirable rather than service industry.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.616-619
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• 2007

Nowadays, urbanized area expands its boundary, and distribution of urbanized area is gradually transformed into more complicated pattern. In Korea, SMA(Seoul Metropolitan Area) has outstanding urbanized area since 1950s. But it is ambiguous whether urban distribution is clustered or dispersed. This study aims to show the way in which expansion of urbanized area impacts on spatial distribution pattern of urbanized area. We use quadrat analysis, nearest-neighbor analysis and fractal analysis to know distribution pattern of urbanized area in time-series urban growth. The quadrat analysis indicates that distribution pattern of urbanized area is clustered but the cohesion is gradually weakened. And the nearest-neighbor analysis shows that point patterns are changed that urbanized area distribution pattern is progressively changed from clustered pattern into dispersed pattern. The fractal dimension analysis shows that 1972's distribution dimension is 1.428 and 2000's dimension is 1.777. Therefore, as time goes by, the complexity of urbanized area is more increased through the years. As a result, we can show that the cohesion of the urbanized area is weakened and complicated.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.580-602
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• 2011

Volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions in the 2007 CAPSS (Clean Air Protection Supporting System) emissions inventory are chemically speciated for the SAPRC99 (Statewide Air Pollution Research Center 99) mechanism, following the Source Classification Code (SCC) matching method to borrow the U.S.EPA's chemical speciation profiles. CMAQ simulations with High-order Direct Decoupled Method (HDDM) are in turn applied to evaluate uncertainty in the method by comparing the simulated model VOC species to the observations in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) for a 2007 June episode. Simulations under-predicted ALK1 to ALK4 in SAPRC99 by a factor of 2 to 5 and over-predicted ALK5 by a factor of 7.5 while ARO1, ARO2, OLE1, and ethylene (ETH) are comparable to the observations, showing relative difference by 10 to 30%. OLE2 emissions are roughly 4 times overestimated. Emission rates for individual VOC model species are revised referring to the ratio of simulated to observed concentrations. Impact of the VOC emission changes on the overall ozone prediction was insignificant for the days of which 1-hr maximum ozone are lower than 100 ppb. However, simulations showed ozone difference by 5 to 10 ppb when high ozone above 120 ppb was observed in the vicinity of Seoul. This result suggests that evaluations on individual model VOC emissions be necessary to lead ozone control plans to the right direction. Moreover, the simulated ratios of ARO1 and ARO2 to $NO_x$ are roughly 50% lower than the observed ones, which imply that adjustment in $NO_x$ and VOC emission rates may be required to mimic the real VOC/$NO_x$ condition over the area.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.430-446
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• 2018

To improve understanding of the sources and chemical properties of particulate pollutants on the Korean Peninsula, An Aerodyne High Resolution Time of Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS) measured non-refractory fine particle ($NR-PM_1$) from 2013 to 2015 at Baengnyeong Island and Seoul metropolitan area (SMA), Korea. The chemical composition of $NR-PM_1$ in Baengnyeong island was dominated by organics and sulfate in the range of 36~38% for 3 years, and the organics were the dominant species in the range of 44~55% of $NR-PM_1$ in Seoul metropolitan area. The sulfate was found to be more than 85% of the anthropogenic origin in the both areas of Baengnyeong and SMA. Ratio of gas to particle partition of sulfate and nitrate were observed in both areas as more than 0.6 and 0.8, respectively, representing potential for formation of additional particulate sulfate and nitrate. The high-resolution spectra of organic aerosol (OA) were separated by three factors which were Primary OA(POA), Semi-Volatility Oxygenated Organic Aerosol (SV-OOA), and Low-Volatility OOA(LV-OOA) using positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis. The fraction of oxygenated OA (SOA, ${\fallingdotseq}OOA$=SV-OOA+LV-OOA) was bigger than the fraction of POA in $NR-PM_1$. The POA fraction of OA in Seoul is higher than it of Baengnyeong Island, because Seoul has a relatively large number of primary pollutants, such as gasoline or diesel vehicle, factories, energy facilities. Potential source contribution function (PSCF) analysis revealed that transport from eastern China, an industrial area with high emissions, was associated with high particulate sulfate and organic concentrations at the Baengnyeong and SMA sites. PSCF also presents that the ship emissions on the Yellow Sea was associated with high particulate sulfate concentrations at the measurement sites.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.17-36
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• 2023

This research aims to investigate the socio-demographic, financial, and housing statuses of young married couples in Chonsei housing and to analyze the determinants of their residential environment quality and housing expenditure in four districts - Seoul and Gyeonggi-Incheon Area(GIA) of the Seoul Metropolitan Area(SMA), and metropolises and non-metropolises of non-SMA. From the 2020 Korean Housing Survey(KHS), this cross-sectional analysis examined a sample of 691 households, and the findings revealed that most were headed by college-educated, salaried male workers aged 31 years old. While childless dual-earner couples were common in Seoul, single-income families of three were prevalent in non-SMA. The financial status of the couples in Seoul was a lot better than in the other three areas, particularly much higher in Chonsei deposit and total asset value. Further, many lived in a three-bedroom apartment unit sized 60m² and bigger, using a Chonsei loan. Regardless of areas, almost all the households spent a very low portion of their living expenses and income on housing costs. However, dual-earner families positively increased borrowing capacity, which improves the household's financial position that is likely to lead to equity increment in a volatile asset market in the long run. The statistical results indicated that residential environment assessment was influenced by neighborhood quality and housing expenditure was affected by housing size in Seoul, urban amenities in GIA and householder's gender in non-metropolises. Thus, this research proposes that strong measures be considered to mitigate housing inequality embedded in geographical and socio-economic disparities.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.567-583
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• 2019

In this study, the high-resolution numerical simulations considering detailed anthropogenic heat, albedo, emission and roughness length are analyzed by using single layer Urban Canopy Model (UCM) in Weather Research Forecast (WRF). For this, improved urban parameter data for Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) was collected from global data. And then the parameters were applied to WRF-UCM model after it was processed into 2-dimensional topographical data. The 6 experiments were simulated by using the model with each parameter and verified against observation from Automated Weather Station (AWS) and flux tower for the temperature and sensible heat flux. The data for sensible heat flux of flux towers on Jungnang and Bucheon, the temperature of AWS on Jungnang, Gangnam, Bucheon and Neonggok were used as verification data. In the case of summer, the improvement of simulation by using detailed anthropogenic heat was higher than the other experiments in sensible flux simulation. The results of winter case show improved in all simulations using each advanced parameters in temperature and sensible heat flux simulation. Improvement of urban parameters in this study are possible to reflect the heat characteristics of urban area. Especially, detailed application of anthropogenic heat contributed to the enhancement of predicted value for sensible heat flux and temperature.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.341-356
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• 2019

In this study, the impacts of local meteorology caused by tidal changes in the West Sea on ozone distributions in the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) were analyzed using a meteorological model (WRF) and an air quality (CMAQ) model. This study was carried out during the day (1200-1800 LST) between August 3 and 9, 2016. The total area of tidal flats along with the tidal changes was calculated to be approximately $912km^2$, based on data provided by the Environmental Geographic Information Service (EGIS) and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF). Modeling was carried out based on three experiments, and the land cover of the tidal flats for each experiment was designed using the coastal wetlands, water bodies (i.e., high tide), and the barren or sparsely vegetated areas (i.e., low tide). The land cover parameters of the coastal wetlands used in this study were improved in the herbaceous wetland of the WRF using updated albedo, roughness length, and soil heat capacity. The results showed that the land cover variation during high tide caused a decrease in temperature (maximum $4.5^{\circ}C$) and planetary boundary layer (PBL) height (maximum 1200 m), and an increase in humidity (maximum 25%) and wind speed (maximum $1.5ms^{-1}$). These meteorological changes increased the ozone concentration (about 5.0 ppb) in the coastal areas including the tidal flats. The increase in the ozone concentration during high tide may be caused by a weak diffusion to the upper layer due to a decrease in the PBL height. The changes in the meteorological variables and ozone concentration during low tide were lesser than those occurring during high tide. This study suggests that the meteorological variations caused by tidal changes have a meaningful effect on the ozone concentration in the SMA.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.772-790
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• 2011

In this paper, we use the HDDM (High-order Decoupled Direct Method)-driven ozone sensitivity to predict change in ozone concentrations in response to domain-wide $NO_x$(Oxides of Nitrogen) and VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) emission controls over the Seoul Metropolitan Area during June 11~19, 2007. In order to validate the applicability of HDDM to $NO_x$ and VOC control scenarios, the HDDM results are compared to Brute Force Method (BFM). For VOC controls, NME (Normalized Mean Error) between BFM and HDDM remains less than 2% until the domain-wide VOC emissions are reduced by 80%. The NME for a 40% reduction in the domain-wide $NO_x$ emissions is less than 5% but increases abruptly after further reductions in the $NO_x$ emissions (i.e., 80% reduction). The results indicates that it may be inaccurate to use ozone sensitivity coefficients estimated at a given base emission condition in predicting ozone after $NO_x$ reductions larger than ~50% of the domain total in the SMA. Therefore, HDDM application on piecewise emissions is desirable to predict ozone response to emission controls with accuracy (i.e., truck emissions rather than the domain total). For computational efficiency, HDDM shows approximately 30% faster than the BFM sensitivity approach.