• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.45 no.1
• /
• pp.71-81
• /
• 2019

Objectives: The lung injuries by exposure to the humidifier disinfectants (HDs) were reported in 2011, Korea. For the HD victims, environmental exposure level and clinical diagnosis were conducted to determine the levels of damage by HDs. Methods: The exposure assessment to the HDs from 1st to 4th questionnaire surveys were carried out for 5,245 victims. And the affecting factors of exposure levels were analyzed by characterizing exposure and demographic information. By using of exposure concentration and cumulative time, exposure levels were classified and compared by percentage of clinical diagnosis classes. The high exposure and low clinical diagnosis rating groups, and low exposure and high clinical diagnosis rating groups were analyzed to overcome the limitation of past exposure assessment such as recall bias. Results: Among the all applicants damaged by the humidifier disinfectants, survivors were 4,028 and the dead were 1,217. And male and female were 2,675, and 2,547, respectively. In case of occurrence age of lung disease, under 10 years was majority age group (1,536) and followed by thirties (917). Pregnant women and fetuses were 339 and 439, respectively. And the damages by exposure to the HDs were concentrated on these susceptible populations in groups with low exposure and high clinical diagnosis rating. On the other hand, the groups classified by high exposure and low clinical diagnosis rating were shown different characterization. Conclusions: The questionnaire survey on past exposure may be uncertain due to recall bias. However, the relationship between classified exposure levels and clinical diagnosis ratings might be shown positive correlation if the exposure assessment errors were analyzed and controlled.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.56 no.10
• /
• pp.619-629
• /
• 2023

Recent intensification of climate change has led to an increase in damages caused by droughts. Currently, in Korea, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is used as a criterion to classify the intensity of droughts. Based on the accumulated precipitation over the past six months (SPI-6), meteorological drought intensities are classified into four categories: concern, caution, alert, and severe. However, there is a limitation in classifying drought intensity solely based on precipitation. To overcome the limitations of the meteorological drought warning criteria based on SPI, this study collected emergency water supply damage data from the National Drought Information Portal (NDIP) to classify drought intensity. Factors of SPI, such as precipitation, and factors used to calculate evapotranspiration, such as temperature and humidity, were indexed using min-max normalization. Coefficients for each factor were determined based on the Genetic Algorithm (GA). The drought intensity based on emergency water supply was used as the dependent variable, and the coefficients of each meteorological factor determined by GA were used as coefficients to derive a new Drought Severity Classification Index (DSCI). After deriving the DSCI, cumulative distribution functions were used to present intensity stage classification boundaries. It is anticipated that using the proposed DSCI in this study will allow for more accurate drought intensity classification than the traditional SPI, supporting decision-making for disaster management personnel.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.143-156
• /
• 2014

We reviewed investigation status on turbidity plume in the statement of marine environmental survey(2008 to 2012) associated with marine sand extraction projects. The survey statement from seven marine sand extraction sites (extraction area of Southern EEZ, extraction area of Western EEZ, relocation zone in the Western EEZ, sea area under jurisdiction of Taean-gun, sea area under jurisdiction of Ansan City, and two discrete sea areas under jurisdiction of Ongjin-gun) in the nearshore and offshore of Korea showed that in situ observations were carried out for the dispersion and transport of suspended sediments on two areas (One is a extraction area in the EEZs, the other is an area of coastal sites). However, sampling station and range have not been selected considering physical, geographical factors (tide, wave, stratification, water depth, etc.) and weather conditions (wind direction and velocity, fetch, duration, etc). Especially turbidity plumes originating from three sources, which include suspended sediments in overflow(or overspill) discharged from spillways and reject chutes of dredging vessel, and resuspended sediments from draghead at the seabed, may be transported to a far greater distance outside the boundary of the extraction site and have undesirable impacts on the marine environment and ecosystem. We address that behaviour of environmental pollutants such as suspended solids, nutrients, and metals should be extensively monitored and diagnosed during the dispersion and transport of the plume. Finally we suggest the necessity to supplement the current system of the sea area utilization consultation and establish the combined guidelines on marine sand extraction to collect basic data, to monitor cumulative effects, and to minimize environmental damages incurred by the aftermath of sand extraction.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.268-278
• /
• 2020

Flowering time has been put forward due to the recent abnormally warm winter, which often caused damages of flower buds by late frosts persistently. In the present study, cumulative chill unit and cumulative heat unit of Niitaka pear, which are required for releasing the endogenous dormancy and for flowering after breaking dormancy, respectively, were compared between flowering time prediction models used in South K orea. Observation weather data were collected at eight locations for the recent three years from 2018-2020. The dates of full bloom were also collected to determine the confidence level of models including DVR, mDVR and CD models. It was found that mDVR model tended to have smaller values (8.4%) of the coefficient of variation (cv) of chill units than any other models. The CD model tended to have a low value of cv (17.5%) for calculation of heat unit required to reach flowering after breaking dormancy. The mDVR model had the most accurate prediction of full bloom during the study period compared with the other models. The DVR model usually had poor skills in prediction of full bloom dates. In particular, the error of the DVR model was large especially in southern coastal areas (e.g., Ulju and Sacheon) where the temperature was warm. Our results indicated that the mDVR model had relatively consistent accuracy in prediction of full bloom dates over region and years of interest. When observation data for full bloom date are compiled for an extended period, the full bloom date can be predicted with greater accuracy improving the mDVR model further.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.106 no.4
• /
• pp.431-440
• /
• 2017

The 2016 Gyeongju Earthquake ($M_L$ 5.8) (occurred on September 12, 2016) and the 2017 Pohang Earthquake ($M_L$ 5.4) (occurred on November 15, 2017) caused unprecedented damages in South Korea. It is necessary to establish basic data related to earthquake-induced mountainous sediment-related disasters over worldwide. In this study, we analyzed previous international studies on the earthquake-induced mountainous sediment-related disasters, then classified research areas according to research themes using text-mining and co-word analysis in VOSviewer program, and finally examined spatio-temporal research trends by research area. The result showed that the related-researches have been rapidly increased since 2005, which seems to be affected by recent large-scale earthquakes occurred in China, Taiwan and Japan. In addition, the research area related to mountainous sediment-related disasters induced by earthquakes was classified into four subjects: (i) mechanisms of disaster occurrence; (ii) rainfall parameters controlling disaster occurrence; (iii) prediction of potential disaster area using aerial and satellite photographs; and (iv) disaster risk mapping through the modeling of disaster occurrence. These research areas are considered to have a strong correlation with each other. On the threshold year (i.e., 2012-2013), when cumulative number of research papers was reached 50% of total research papers published since 1987, proportions per unit year of all research areas should increase. Especially, the proportion of the research areas related to prediction of potential disaster area using aerial and satellite photographs is highly increased compared to other three research areas. These trends are responsible for the rapidly increasing research papers with study sites in China, and the research papers examined in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States have also contributed to increases in all research areas. The results are could be used as basic data to present future research direction related to mountainous sediment-related disasters induced by earthquakes in South Korea.