• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Environmental Toocicology Conference
• /
• 2003.05a
• /
• pp.149-149
• /
• 2003

To understand environmental paths of the transport and accumulation of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), a single cell multimedia fate model has been constructed and evaluated. The EDCs of concern were PAHs, Organochlorine Pesticides (OCPs), PCBs, Alkyl phenols, and phthalates. An evaluation model was designed for the multimedia distribution, including air, water, soil, sediment and vegetation. This model was verified using reported values and via monitoring data. Based on collected data, the distribution trends of EDCs with respect to environmental media were analyzed. Those results have applied to the model for the prediction of the spatial and temporal distribution of EDCs in Seoul. Especially, phenol compound, phthalates, PAHs, PCBs and organochlorine pesticides were estimated and the model was verified. This model was successfully conducted to environmental media, such as air (vapor and suspended particles), soils (forest soil, bare soil, and cement-concrete covered soil), water (dissolved and suspended solids), sediment, trees (deciduous and coniferous). The discrepancies between the model prediction and the measured data are approximately within or near a factor of 10 for the PAHs of three rings through that of six rings, implying that multimedia distribution of the PAHs could be predicted with a factor of 10. Concerning about the air equilibrium may be assumed, a fugacity at steady state is similar in all environmental media. Considering the uncertainties of this model, the use of equilibrium models may be sufficient for assessing chemical fates. In this study, a suggestion was made that modeling and estimation of chemicals in environmental multimedia be rigorously evaluated using the measured flux data. In addition, these data should be obtained, for example, from the precise and standardized inventory of the target chemicals. The model (EDC Seoul) will be refined in an on-going research effort and will be used to support decision-making concerning the management of EDCs.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.7 no.12
• /
• pp.761-771
• /
• 2020

This study discusses the role of Board Monitoring Effectiveness (BME) on managers' decisions regarding the business strategies that fit the external business environmental conditions by using a contingency analysis approach. Furthermore, this study will examine how fit strategies affect Sustainability Reporting (SR) of listed companies on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) from 2014 to 2017. This study uses Conditional Mixed Process (CMP) technique. This CMP method is claimed to be more efficient in analyzing the TSL models. This study found that in highly uncertain conditions, BME had a positive influence on the probability of managers to choose prospector and defender strategies rather than analyzers. These results indicate that BME shows positive impact on the contingency fit between business strategies and environmental uncertainty. In addition, the study documents that only prospectors have a positive impact on SR, however this study failed to document that defenders have positive impact on SR. Meanwhile the unexpected result is analyzers have a significantly positive effect on SR. This study is the first study to investigate the role of BME in contingency fit between business strategies and environmental uncertainties and how it produces effects up to the level of SR.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.65-73
• /
• 2010

Biodiversity, referring to the variety and abundance of species, their genetic composition, and the communities, ecosystem, and landscapes, is essential to maintain healthy and productive forests, and to provide useful hedge against the future uncertainties in conditions of the environment and natural resources. To realize the long-term sustainability for forest production of goods and services is dependent upon maintaining and enhancing the biodiversity in the forest ecosystem. Because we can not always recognized which portion of biodiversity is essential to maintain the stability and sustainability of the natural system, conserving biodiversity is even unconditionally important. Even though the activities of forest resource management may have a variety of negative impacts on biodiversity by modification of the natural ecosystem into economically effective artificial ecosystem, forest professionals have been developing intelligent scheme to coexist management and conservation. However, conservation of biodiversity must be a complex problem encircled by ecological, economical, and social considerations. There seems to be no such a simple and easy solution. Strategies for ecologically deliberated forest resource management, which could play an important role to conserve biodiversity, were discussed.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
• /
• 2013.01a
• /
• pp.386-389
• /
• 2013

Under climate change and urbanization, rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems are emerging as an alternative source of water supply because of growing concern about water sustainability. RWH systems can satisfy the various watering needs and provide the environmental benefits of lessening the damages from flood, drought, and runoff. The economic success of a RWH system is vitally concerned with the determination of the design capacity of storage tank to be built in the system. The design capacity is determined by the factors of average annual rainfall, period of water scarcity, and water price during the whole life-cycles. Despite the high uncertainties inherent in these factors, the current engineering design of RWH system construction often assumes that storage tanks should be built all at once. This assumption implicitly ignores the managerial flexibility in responds to the future as new information comes out-the right to build storage tanks stage by stage depending on the evolution of demand. This study evaluates the value of a multistage storage tank construction using a real option approach. A case study involving a typical RWH system construction in Jeonju, the Republic of Korea is conducted. The managerial flexibility obtained from the real option perspective allows engineers to develop investment strategies to better cope with the issue of water sustainability.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.747-754
• /
• 2021

Purpose: Seismic safety evaluation of a curved bridge must be performed since the curved bridges exhibit the complex behavior rather than the straight bridges, due to geometrical characteristics. In order to conduct the probabilistic seismic assessment of the curved bridge, Seismic fragility evaluation was performed using the uncertainty of the steel material properties of a curved bridge girde, in this study. Method: The finite element (FE) model using ABAQUS platform of the curved bridge girder was constructed, and the statistical parameters of steel materials presented in previous studies were used. 100 steel material models were sampled using the Latin Hypercube Sampling method. As an input ground motion in this study, seismic fragility evaluation was performed by the normalized scale of the Gyeongju earthquake to 0.2g, 0.5g, 0.8g, 1.2g, and 1.5g. Result: As a result of the seismic fragility evaluation of the curved girder, it was found that there was no failure up to 0.03g corresponding to the limit state of allowable stress design, but the failure was started from 0.11g associated with using limit state design. Conclusion: In this study, seismic fragility evaluation was performed considering steel materials uncertainties. Further it must be considered the seismic fragility of the curved bridge using both the uncertainties of input motions and material properties.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.75-84
• /
• 2015

Tropical forests play a critical role in mitigating climate change, and therefore, an accurate and precise estimation of tropical forest carbon (C) is needed. However, there are many uncertainties associated with C stock estimation in a tropical forest, mainly due to its large variations in biomass. Hence, we quantified C stocks in an intact lowland mixed dipterocarp forest (MDF) in Brunei, and investigated variations in biomass and topography. Tree, deadwood, and soil C stocks were estimated by using the allometric equation method, the line intersect method, and the sampling method, respectively. Understory vegetation and litter were also sampled. We then analyzed spatial variations in tree and deadwood biomass in relation to topography. The total C stock was 321.4 Mg C $ha^{-1}$, and living biomass, dead organic matter, and soil C stocks accounted for 67%, 11%, and 23%, respectively, of the total. The results reveal that there was a relatively high C stock, even compared to other tropical forests, and that there was no significant relationship between biomass and topography. Our results provide useful reference data and a greater understanding of biomass variations in lowland MDFs, which could be used for greenhouse gas emission-reduction projects.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.41 no.6
• /
• pp.425-437
• /
• 2015

Objectives: Risk assessment is a tool for predicting and reducing uncertainty related to the effects of future activities. Probability approaches are the main elements in risk assessment, but confusion about the interpretation and use of assessment factors often undermines the message of the analyses. The aim of this study is to provide a guideline for systematic reduction plans regarding uncertainty in risk assessment. Methods: Articles and reports were collected online using the key words "uncertainty analysis" on risk assessment. Uncertainty analysis was conducted based on reports focusing on procedures for analysis methods by the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). In addition, case studies were performed in order to verify suggested methods qualitatively and quantitatively with exposure data, including measured data on toluene and styrene in residential spaces and multi-use facilities. Results: Based on an analysis of the data on uncertainty, three major factors including scenario, model, and parameters were identified as the main sources of uncertainty, and tiered approaches were determined. In the case study, the risk of toluene and styrene was evaluated and the most influential factors were also determined. Five reduction plans were presented: providing standard guidelines, using reliable exposure factors, possessing quality controls for analysis and scientific expertise, and introducing a peer review system. Conclusion: In this study, we established a method for reducing uncertainty by taking into account the major factors. Also, we showed a method for uncertainty analysis with tiered approaches. However, uncertainties are difficult to define because they are generated by many factors. Therefore, further studies are needed for the development of technical guidelines based on the representative scenario, model, and parameters developed in this study.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.29-38
• /
• 2018

Background: Radon contributing about 42% of annual average dose, mainly comes from soil. In this paper, standard measurement procedures for soil radon exhalation rate are suggested and their measurement uncertainties are analyzed. Materials and Methods: We used accumulation method for estimating surface exhalation rate. The closed-loop measurement system was made up with a RAD7 detector and a surface chamber. Radon activity concentrations in the system were observed as a function of time, with data collection of 5 and 15-minute and the measurement time of 4 hours. Linear and exponential fittings were used to obtain radon exhalation rates from observed data. Standard deviations of measurement uncertainties for two approaches were estimated using usual propagation rules. Results and Discussion: The exhalation rates (E) from linear approach, with 30 minutes measurement time were $44.8-48.6mBq{\cdot}m^{-2} {\cdot}s^{-1}$ or $2.14-2.32atom{\cdot}cm^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$ with relative measurement uncertainty of about 10%. The contributions of fitting parameter A, volume (V) and surface (S) to the estimated measurement uncertainty of E were 59.8%, 30.1% and 10.1%, in average respectively. In exponential fitting, at 3-hour measurement we had E ranged of $51.6-69.2mBq{\cdot}m^{-2} {\cdot}s^{-1}$ or $2.46-3.30atom{\cdot}cm^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$ with about 15% relative uncertainty. Fitting with 4-hour measurement resulted E about $51.3-68.2mBq{\cdot}m^{-2} {\cdot}s^{-1}$ or $2.45-3.25atom{\cdot}cm^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$ with 10% relative uncertainty. The uncertainty contributions in exponential approach were 75.1%, 13.4%, 8.7%, and 2.9% for total decay constant k, fitting parameter B, V, and S, respectively. Conclusion: In obtaining exhalation rates, the linear approach is easy to apply, but by saturation feature of radon concentrations, the slope tends to decrease away from the expected slope for extended measurement time. For linear approach, measurement time of 1-hour or less was suggested. For exponential approach, the obtained exhalation rates showed similar values for any measurement time, but measurement time of 3-hour or more was suggested for about 10% relative uncertainty.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.279-288
• /
• 2010

The water quality variations or changes are closely relevant to the characteristics of unit watersheds and have an effect on the attainment of their water quality goal. This study was conducted to analyze the water quality distribution and its change patterns of unit watersheds in Nakdong river basin. It revealed that 25 unit watersheds out of 41 showed the normality in water quality. Most of unit watersheds had a considerable variation in water quality, especially in the season of spring and summer but a little in terms of flow rate. Annual relative differences in water quality ranged from 13.0 to 26.6% with the maximum of 75%. 28 unit watersheds (62%) had the tendency to decrease in water quality as the flow rate increased while 13 (38%) to increase. The extension of standard flow led to considerable differences in water quality depending on its ranges, which meant uncertainties might be included in the process of TMDL development. It is suggested that annual average flow rate should be chosen as a standard flow in the area where the water quality change has little relation to the flow rate.

• Journal of Environmental Analysis, Health and Toxicology
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.229-236
• /
• 2018

In this study, inter-laboratory comparison was done using elemental analyzer-isotope ratio mass spectrometers (EA-IRMSs) to determine carbon and nitrogen contents as well as stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions (${\delta}^{13}C$ and ${\delta}^{15}N$) of five environmental samples containing lake and marine sediments, higher plant leaves, and fish muscle, and one organic analytical standard (Protein (Casein) Standard OAS). Five national laboratories participated in this comparison study, and each laboratory analyzed all five samples and the analytical standard. Results showed that variations in total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN) contents as well as ${\delta}^{13}C_{TOC}$ and ${\delta}^{15}N_{TN}$ values among the laboratories were large compared to the analytical uncertainties. The results highlighted the inhomogeneity of the test samples and thus, the need to select suitable standard reference materials for future inter-laboratory studies. Further inter-laboratory comparison exercises could promote good measurement practices in the acquisition of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic composition data.