• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.61-72
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• 2017

Due to the climate change, damages of human life and property caused by natural disaster have recently been increasing consistently. In South Korea, total damage by natural disasters over 20 years from 1994 to 2013 is about 1.0 million dollars. The 13% of total damage caused by heavy snow. This is smaller amount than the damage by heavy rainfall or typhoon, but still could cause severe damage in the society. In this study, the snow damage in Gangwon region was estimated using climate variables (daily maximum snow depth, relative humidity, minimum temperature) and scoio-economic variables (Farm population density, GRDP). Multiple regression analysis with enter method was applied to estimate snow damage. As the results, adjusted R-square is above 0.7 in some sub-regions and shows the good applicability although the extreme values are not predicted well. The developed model might be applied for the prompt disaster response.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.248-253
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• 2002

This study was to provide information about snow falling phenomenon in Korea for 1934 years from BC 6 to 1928 based on the records of old literatures, which are the true record of the Chosun dynasty, records of king Kojong and Soonjong, and some data including history of the Koryo in internet home page of Korea meteorological administration. Key words used in search procedure were totally 20 words such as snow, heavy snow, big snow, snow pellets, snowstorm, avalanche, etc. The searching contents consisted of the time of the first and the last snow, the amount of snow falling, snow damage, the thought about heavy snow phenomenon, and unusual weather conditions related to snow. The earliest record for the first snow was July of the rural calendar in 733 and the latest record for the last snow was June 11 of the lunar calendar. From these records, it could be estimated that there were some snow falling even in summer season. The amount of almost heavy snow ranged from 1.2 m to 1.5 m, but sometimes there were some records about the amount of snow falling higher than 3 meters. It was also found that there were three records about big heavy snow damages. In 1524 and 1525, approximately 100 and 140 peoples in Kyungsung, Hamgyung Province were dead due to heavy snowstorm. It was also recorded that 91 people in Jeiu island were dead in 1670 because of snow damage. Some singular records about snow were also found in old literatures. There was a congratulatory ceremony of new snow when the first snow was falling in the year. There was also a ritual praying for snow when there was no snow in the year. It was also found that there was snow falling with worms and red snow falling.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.143-149
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• 2008

We conduct economic analysis of the snow damage on sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) forest stands in Toyama Prefecture, Japan. We utilize a single tree and distant independent growth simulator called "Silv-Forest." With this growth simulator, we developed an optimization model by dynamic programming, called DP-Silv (Dynamic Programming Silv-Forest). The MS-PATH (multiple stage projection alternative technique) algorithm was embedded as a searching algorithm of dynamic programming. The height / DBH ratio was used to constrain the thinning regime for snow damage protection. The optimal rotation age turned out to be 65 years for the non-restricted case, while it was 50 years for the restricted case. The difference in NPV of these two cases as the induced costs ranged from 179,867 to 1,910,713yen/ha over the rotation age of 20 to 75 years. Under the optimal rotation of 65 years, the cost became 914,226 yen/ha. The estimated annual payment based on the difference in NPV, was from 9,869 yen/ha/yr to 85,900 yen/ha/yr. All in all, 10,000 yen/ha/yr to 20,000 yen/ha/yr seems to cover the payment from the rotation age of 35 to 75 years.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.259-271
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• 2020

In Korea, snow damage has happened in the region with little snowfalls in history. Also, accidental damage was caused by heavy snow leads and the public interest on heavy snow has been increased. Therefore, policy about the Natural Disaster Reduction Comprehensive Plan has been changed to include the mitigation measures of snow damage. However, since heavy snow damage was not frequent, studies on snowfall have not been conducted on different points. The characteristics of snow data commonly are not the same as the rainfall data. Some southern coastal areas in Korea are snowless during the year. Therefore, a joint probability distribution was suggested to analyze the snow data with many 0s in a previous research and fitness from the joint probability distribution was higher than the conventional methods. In this study, snow frequency analysis was implemented using the joint probability distribution and compared to the design codes. The results were compared to the design codes. The results of this study can be used as the basic data to develop a procedure for the snow frequency analysis in the future.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.92-101
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• 2020

To prevent and mitigate damage to farms due to heavy snowfall, snow weight information should be provided in addition to snow depth. This study reviews four formulae regarding snow density and weight used in extant studies and applies them in Suwon area to estimate snow weight in Korea. We investigated the observed snow depth of 94 meteorological stations and automatic weather stations (AWS) data over the past 30 years (1988-2017). Based on the spatial distribution of snow depth by area in Korea, much of the fresh snow cover, due to heavy snowfall, occurred in Jeollabuk-do and Gangwon-do. Record snowfalls occurred in Gyeongsangbuk-do and Gangwon-do. However, the most recent heavy snowfall in winter occurred in Gyeonggi-do, Gyeongsangbuk-do, and Jeollanam-do. This implies that even if the snow depth is high, there is no significant damage unless the snow weight is high. The estimation of snow weight in Suwon area yielded different results based on the calculation method of snow density. In general, high snow depth is associated with heavy snow weight. However, maximum snow weight and maximum snow depth do not necessarily occur on the same day. The result of this study can be utilized to estimate the snow weight at other locations in Korea and to carry out snow weight prediction based on a numerical model. Snow weight information is expected to aid in establishing standards for greenhouse design and to reduce the economic losses incurred by farms.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.106-111
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• 2013

The heavy snow event occurred on JAN 4, 2010 brought huge disaster such as Gimpo International Airport runway closed, heavy delays of other airport, and property damage of 16 billion won. Though this heavy snow event is involved in the general synoptic scale heavy snow forecast, it recorded too much snow amount and longer duration than expected. To explain this unusual event, we used the conveyor belt theory. By combining the synoptic scale heavy snow forecast and the conveyor belt theory, the characteristics of heavy snow event was well explained.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.1001-1009
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• 2019

Due to recent increasing heavy snow in Korea, the damage caused by heavy snow is also increasing. In Korea, there are many efforts including establishing disaster prevention measures to reduce the damage throughout the country, but it is difficult to establish the design criteria due to the characteristics of heavy snow. In this study, snowfall frequency analysis was performed to estimate design snow depths using observed snow depth data at Jinju, Changwon and Hapcheon stations. The conventional frequency analysis is sometime limted to apply to the snow depth data containing zero values which produce unrealistc estimates of distributon parameters. To overcome this problem, this study employed mixed distributions based on Lognormal, Generalized Pareto (GP), Generalized Extreme Value (GEV), Gamma, Gumbel and Weibull distribution. The results show that the mixed distributions produced smaller design snow depths than single distributions, which indicated that the mixed distributions are applicable and practical to estimate design snow depths.

• 한국방재학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.02a
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• pp.509-512
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• 2008

The objectives of the on-the-spot inspection in Honam district are to find out the situation of the damages on facilities and the reason of the damages caused by heavy snow, and to suggest the preventive plan for reducing the damages from the future heavy snow. From the results of the on-the-spot inspection, plastic houses, barns and ginseng cultivation facilities are mainly damaged by heavy snow in the Honam district, and the importance of the future heavy snow preparedness measures is highly recognized in an agricultural district. In this research, 4 kinds of alternative proposals for the heavy snow are suggested.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.1077-1086
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• 2013

Recent huge losses of both life and property have occurred by unexpected natural disasters. We studied snow damages, an important natural disaster issue because it happens more frequently in recent years. This study tries to select vulnerable areas of snowfall in advance and then establish climate change adaptation policy for minimizing unexpected snowfall damage. Busan, where is our study area, has hilly in downtown areas so that topography characteristics of the roads such as slope, elevation and aspect are vulnerable to snowfall. The sudden snowfall in Busan causes traffic jam and causes some schools in hilly to close some schools. At this moment, the adaptation policy has to be established for infrastructure (such as roads) in advance, because prediction of anomaly climate due to global warming is so difficult beside the damage of natural disaster is huge. Therefore, the purpose of this study is contribute to selecting and assessing vulnerable zones of snow damage focusing topography characteristics of the roads and then evaluating the degree of risk of vulnerable zones.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.627-635
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• 2019

In Korea, snow damage has been happened in the region with no snowfalls in history. Also, casual damage was caused by heavy snow. Therefore, policy about the Natural Disaster Reduction Comprehensive Plan has been changed to include the mitigation measures of snow damage. However, since heavy snow damage was not frequent, studies on snowfall have not been conducted in different points. The characteristics of snow data commonly are not same to the rainfall data. For example, some parts of the southern coastal areas are snowless during the year, so there is often no values or zero values among the annual maximum daily snow accumulation. The characteristics of this type of data is similar to the censored data. Indeed, Busan observation sites have more than 36% of no data or zero data. Despite of the different characteristics, the frequency analysis for snow data has been implemented according to the procedures for rainfall data. The frequency analysis could be implemented in both way to include the zero data or exclude the zero data. The fitness of both results would not be high enough to represent the real data shape. Therefore, in this study, a methodology for selecting a probability density function was suggested considering the characteristics of snow data in Korea. A method to select probability density function using conditional joint probability distribution was proposed. As a result, fitness from the proposed method was higher than the conventional methods. This shows that the conventional methods (includes 0 or excludes 0) overestimated snow depth. The results of this study can affect the design standards of buildings and also contribute to the establishment of measures to reduce snow damage.