• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.10-26
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• 2018

This paper reviews the soil conservation policies (SCP) in the global community and suggests the improved options in SCP in Korea. Soil Environment Conservation Act in Korea states soil is a valuable natural resource and it's value should be enhanced to provide the benefits that soil ecosystem can offer to people. However, SCP in Korea limits its application to not only the scope of soil environment but also the issues on soil pollution. The SCPs in the advanced countries have shifted their scopes from soil environment to soil ecosystem, put emphasis on the conservation of soil health rather than soil quality, and set the goals to optimize the soil ecosystem services to people while minimizing the soil threats. In this context, the soil security initiative was recently proposed to accomplish this goal while employing the nexus concept to bridge the soil ecosystem services with water, atmosphere, climate and biodiversity. Therefore, the key policies in soil conservation in Korea should expand the scope from soil environment to soil ecosystem, focus on soil health management, and develop the holistic governance among diverse stakeholder to maximize the soil ecosystem services. Soil ecosystem should be secured by national soil policies for human health.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.15-24
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• 2015

The soil ecosystem is a complex system performing particularly complicated and varied functions, such as providing a habitat for organisms, acting as a medium for plant cultivation and growth, and functioning as a buffer against external materials in the environment. To assess whether these important functions of the soil ecosystem are executed appropriately, the concept of soil ecosystem health has been introduced, which is defined as the ability to perform the specific functions of the soil ecosystem. Understanding soil properties and soil indicators related to soil functions is essential to assess the soil health. In this study, systems, the indicators, and evaluation factors for assessing soil ecosystem health employed in a number of countries were investigated and discussed. In particular, it is necessary to introduce a technique for the evaluation of soil ecosystem health in Korea and to develop techniques and indicators appropriate to the soil ecosystem and status in Korea.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.367-371
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• 2005

Soil samples were collected from new-developed wetland soil ecosystem of Tamarix chinesis plantation in Chinese Yellow River Delta in different months of 2003. Soil characteristics, temporal change and spatial distribution of microbial community composition and their relationship with nitrogen turnover and circling were investigated in order to analyze and characterize the role of microbial diversity and functioning in the specific soil ecosystem. The result showed that the total population of microbial community in the studied soil was considerably low, compared with common natural ecosystem. The amount of microorganism followed as the order: bacteria> actinomycetes>fungi. Amount of actinomycetes were higher by far than that of fungi. Microbial population remarkably varied in different months. Microbial population of three species in top horizon was corrected to that in deep horizon. Obvious rhizosphere effect was observed and microbial population was significantly higher in rhizosphere than other soils due to vegetation growth, root exudation, and cumulative dead fine roots. Our results demonstrate that microbial diversity is low, while is dominated by specific community in the wetland ecosystem of Tamarix chinesi.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.1286-1294
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• 2011

This paper reviews the future directions and perspectives on the soil environmental researches in the 21 century. Previously, the principal emphasis of soil environmental researches had put on the enhancement of food and fiber productions. Beside the basic function of soil, however, the societal needs on soil resources in the 21st century have demands for several environmental and social challenges, occurring regionally or globally. Typical global issues with which soil science should deal include food security with increasing agronomic production to meet the exploding world population growth, adaptation and mitigation of climate change, increase of the carbon sequestration, supply of the biomass and bioenergy, securing the water resource and quality, protection of environmental pollution, enhancing the biodiversity and ecosystem health, and developing the sustainable farming/cropping system that improve the use efficiency of water and agricultural resources. These challenges can be solved through the sustainable crop production intensification (SCPI) or plant welfare concept in which soil plays a key role in solving the abovementioned global issues. Through implementation of either concept, soil science can fulfill the goal of the modern agriculture which is the sustainable production of crops while maintaining or enhancing the ecosystem function, quality and health. Therefore, directions of the future soil environmental researches should lie on valuing soil as an ecosystem services, translating research across both temporal and spatial scales, sharing and using data already available for other purposes, incorporating existing and new technologies from other disciplines, collaborating across discipline, and translating soil research into information for stakeholders and end users. Through the outcomes of these approaches, soil can enhance the productivity from the same confined land, increase profitability, conserve natural resource, reduce the negative impact on environment, enhance human nutrition and health, and enhance natural capital and the flow of ecosystem services. Soil is the central dogma, final frontier and new engine for the era of sustainability development in the $21^{st}$ century and thus soil environmental researches should be carried according to this main theme.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1-9
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• 2012

The purpose of ecological risk assessment in soil ecosystem is to protect ecological receptors and to provide a scheme of efficient management for soil contaminants. Developed countries have already prepared the methodologies of ecological risk assessment by considering their soil properties, land use, and ecological receptors. In this study, we compared the soil ecological risk assessment processes in the similarity and differences in methodology. Four countries, except for USA, adjusted the toxicological data for ecological risk assessment, based on their representative soil properties because the soil properties affect toxic effects to ecological receptors. The soil ecological risk assessment methodology of Netherlands and UK was based on 'Technical guidance document on risk assessment (TGD)' of European Chemical Bureau (ECB). Australia, USA, and Canada developed their autonomous methodology. In the Netherlands, UK, Australia, and Canada, they employed the species sensitivity distribution (SSD) approach if sufficient toxicity data are available. The USA determined the ecological soil screening level by obtaining the geometric mean of toxicological data for three species. Furthermore, all countries consider secondary poisoning in their soil ecological risk assessment. The latest risk assessment methodology of soil ecosystem that this study investigated can be used to explore what Korea needs to develop the Korean ecological risk assessment methodology of soil ecosystem in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.148-148
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• 2019

The 2006 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) defines ecosystem services (ES) as "the benefits people obtain from ecosystems". Identifying where ES originates, whom it benefits and how it is changing over a period of time is critical in rapidly developing country like Nepal, where the risk of ES loss is high. In the context of various ecosystem services provided by watershed, this study, particularly deals with water yield, Soil loss and Carbon sequestration computation and evaluation in Bagmati Basin of Nepal. As Bagmati Basin incorporates capital city Kathmandu of nepal, land use change is significant over decades and mapping of ES is crucial for sustainable development of Basin in future. In this regard, the objectives of this study are 1) To compute the total and sub-watershed scale water yield of the basin, 2) Computation of soil loss and sediment retention in the basin, and 3) Computation of carbon sequestration in the basin. Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), a popular model for ecosystem service assessment based on Budyko hydrological method is used to compute Ecosystem services. The scenario of ES in two periods of time can be referenced for various approaches of prioritization and incorporation of their value into local and regional decision making for management of basin.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.85-94
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• 1998

Herbicides play a very important role in modern agriculture. However, the herbicide applied to the agricultural field may accumulate in the field, converting the advantages to environment pollution. Many small animals in the ecosystem such as alderfly, earthworm, butterfly, loach, frog, firefly, some birds and aquatic organisms have been known to disappear gradually. In addition, several behavior of herbicides including adsorption by soil, movement by water, photodecomposition, volatilization to air, absorption by plant, metabolism by soil microorganisms and so on, are proceeded while the herbicide remained in the environment. In this review, fate and behavior of herbicides in the environment and their effect on ecosystem after their application are focused on four aspects : the first is the absorption and metabolism of herbicides by plant; the second is the residues of herbicides in soil and water environments: the third is the accumulation and release of herbicides in aquatic organisms and the fourth is the translocation of herbicides in model agricultural ecosystem. Many factors may affect the behavior and fate of herbicides after their application, climatic conditions and soil properties seem to be the most important. Therefore, the fate and behavior of herbicide in Taiwan, located on subtropical region, may differ from those in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.1179-1186
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• 2012

For better understanding of carbon cycle dynamics of an agro-ecosystem, an accurate assessment of seasonal and daily $CO_2$ flux is essential to understand the relationship between various environmental factors and crop productivity. We developed the automatic sliding canopy chamber (ASCC) system that measured continuous net ecosystem productivity (NEP) over whole growing season under the natural meteorological rhythm. The ASCC was composed of two main parts which were sliding part for measuring NEP, and automatic opening and closing chamber (AOCC) for measuring soil respiration (SR) on the soil surface. The ASCC was developed by using open flow method for measuring soil $CO_2$ efflux. The disturbance of natural meteorological condition was minimized by opening the base frames. In the field test with barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), NEP was calculated at $140mg\;CO_2\;m^{-2}h^{-1}$ on a clear day using continuous data and eliminated the possibility of overestimate about 16% using one hour data during the day time. Unlike other small scale chamber system, installation on cropping-field made it possible to take any modifications which might be caused by natural environmental condition.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.163-173
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• 2018

Background: Deforestation and degradation are currently affecting the ecosystem services of forests. Among the ecosystem services affected by deforestation and degradation are the amount of soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) stored in forest soils which have greater impacts in global climate change. This study aimed at examining the amount of SOC and TN in the forest fragments which were separated from the continuous tracts of forests of Jibat and Chillimo through fragmentation processes over four decades. Methods: We have sampled soils from 15 forest fragments of Chillimo and Jibat in the central highlands of Ethiopia. The soil samples obtained in two separate soil depths (0-30 and 30-60 cm) were bulked, dried, and sieved for analysis. Results: Our results have shown that the two sites (Jibat and Chillimo forest fragments) differed in their SOC and TN contents. While the values for Jibat were found to be 29.89 Mg/ha of SOC and 2.84 Mg/ha for TN, it was 14. 06 Mg/ha of SOC and 1.40 Mg/ha for TN for Chillimo. When all forest fragment soil samples were bulked together, Jibat site had twice the value of SOC and TN than Chillimo. When disaggregated on the basis of each fragments, there existed differences in SOC (1.86 Mg/ha and 42.15 Mg/ha) and TN (0.24 Mg/ha and 4.23 Mg/ha) values. Among the forest fragments, fragment four ($F_4$) had the highest Relative Soil Improvement Index (RSII) value of 3826.82% and fragment fifteen ($F_{15}$) had the lowest RSII value (726.87%) which indicated that the former had a better quality of soil properties than the latter. Conclusion: SOC and TN differed across sampled fragments and sites. Variations in soil properties are the reflections of inherent soil parent material, aboveground vegetation, human interferences, and other physical factors. Such differences could be very important for identifying intervention measures for restoration and enhancing ecosystem services of those fragments.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.102-111
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• 2014

Ecological restoration is regarded as a major strategy for preventing biodiversity loss and thereby enhancing ecosystem service. This study was performed to evaluate ecosystem service value that the restored ecosystem provides. Ecosystem service was evaluated for provisioning and regulating services. The former service was evaluated by comparing similarities in a viewpoint of floristic composition to the reference site between the restored and the unrestored sites. Species composition of the restored site was found to be more similar to the reference site than that of the unrestored site and thereby restoration practice contributed for enhancing the provisioning service. Regulating service was evaluated based on microclimate control, soil amelioration, and improvement of water holding capacity. The value of ecosystem services in terms of microclimate control, soil amelioration, and improvement of water holding capacity was higher in the restored site than in the unrestored site. In consequence, ecological restoration of coal mine spoils contributed for enhancing the ecosystem service value of the corresponding site and thereby is rewarding the cost invested for restoration.