• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.103-110
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• 2018

Backgrounds: In arid grasslands, wells are subject to heavy trampling and grazing pressure, which can increase vulnerability to local land degradation. To investigate trampling and grazing, we surveyed plant communities at three well sites in the desert steppe of Mongolia, using 1600-m line transects from the wells. The sites (Bshrub, Sshrub, and shrubL) differed by concomitant shrub type (big shrub, small shrub, and shrub-limited) and livestock pressure (light, medium, and heavy). A plant classification scheme based on edibility and morphology (rosette or creeping type) was used to separate grazing and trampling effects on plant communities. Results: Edible plants were dominant at all sites but a fraction of grazing- and trampling-tolerant plants increased in the order Bshrub, Sshrub, and shrubL, following livestock pressure. Clear transition zones from inedible to edible plant groups were recognized but at different locations and ranges among the sites. Trampling-tolerant plants explained 90% of inedible plants at Sshrub with camels and horses, but grazing-tolerant plants prevailed (60%) at shrubL with the largest livestock number. Plant coverage increased significantly along the transects at Bshrub and Sshrub but showed no meaningful change at shrubL. Herbaceous plant biomass showed significant positive and negative trends at Bshrub and shrubL, respectively. Conclusions: Both grazing and trampling can produce larger fractions of inedible plants; in this, camel and horses can have considerable effects on desert-steppe plant communities through trampling.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.202-211
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• 2019

Oceanic islands are biologically important for their unique assemblages of species and high levels of endemism and are sensitive to environmental change because of their isolation and small species source pools. Habitat destruction caused by human landscape development is generally accepted as the main cause of extinction on islands, with exotic species invasion a secondary cause of extinction, especially on tropical islands. However, secondary impacts of human development (e.g., general degradation through resource use and exotic species introduction) are understudied on temperate islands. To determine secondary impacts of human development on the understory vegetation community, 90 field sites on Ulleung Island, South Korea, were sampled during the summer of 2016. Understory vegetation was chosen as it is a proxy for ecosystem health. Diversity and percent cover of introduced, native, and endemic species were tested against proximity to developed areas and trail usage using a model selection approach. Diversity was also tested against percent cover of three naturalized species commonly found in survey plots. The main finding was that distance to development, distance to town, and trail usage have limited negative impacts on the understory vegetation community within best-supported models predicting native and introduced cover and diversity. However, endemic species cover was significantly lower on high usage trails. While there are no apparent locally invasive plant species on the island at the time of this study, percent cover of Robinia pseudoacacia, a naturalized tree species, negatively correlated with plot diversity. These findings indicate that forests on Ulleung Island are not experiencing a noticeable invasion of understory vegetation, and conservation efforts can be best spent preventing future invasions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1-11
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• 2015

Jeju Island is managed intensively in terms of environmental and ecological aspect because of its extraordinary ecosystem types comprising numerous rare, protected flora and fauna. To depict rapid change of habitat status in Jeju Island, the InVEST Habitat Quality model has been operated and compared analytically with the Eco-Natural map. The Habitat Quality map of Jeju Island is turned out to have similar inclination with Eco-Natural map. We compared the average habitat quality value in each Eco-natural map class in Jeju Island and the habitat quality value of first second third grade and non-included area decreased as 0.95 0.76, 0.53 and 0.37 in eco natural map respectively. Compared to biodiversity map based on biological investigation, the result of the InVEST habitat quality model can be simply obtained by land cover map with threat and sensitivity data. Further studies are needed to make explicit coefficients for Jeju Island and Korean peninsula, then the Habitat Quality model could be applied to past and future scenarios to analyze extent of habitat degradation in time series to help decision makers.

• 보존과학연구
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• s.31
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• pp.9-16
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• 2010

The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty is one of the World Heritage which should be conserved well. However, some of wax treated volume of the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty have damaged seriously. Currently a variety of efforts to conserve and restore the injured volumes are continued and many studies about the aging mechanism of the wax treated volume have being progressed. The analysis of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) emitted from paper cultural heritage is one of the methods to understand the degradation pathway of paper cultural heritage. The analysis of VOCs emitted from paper cultural heritage has been mainly conducted by SPME (Solid Phase Microextraction) method. SPME is potable and simple method but it is difficult to collect all VOCs emitted from a book such as the Annals of Joseon Dynasty. The dynamic chamber system has generally used to do analysis of VOCs emitted from the building materials, furniture and electric appliances. The chamber system is possible to do quantitative and qualitative analysis by a continuous $N_2$ gas flow and the proper chamber which is able to gather all VOCs emitted from the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. In this study, the most material among detected VOCs was Naphthalene. Naphthalene has used to prevent organic cultural heritage from being damaged by various microbes for a long time. Apart from Naphthalene, main VOCs were Acetic acid, 2-Chloroethanol, 2-Bromoethanol, Furfural, 1-Methylnaphthalene, Azulene, and 2,4-Dioctylphenol. Of these VOCs, Furfural especially was known for a marker which represents a different emission rate according to the aging level.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.34-44
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• 2016

Background: Little is known about how chemical water quality is associated with ecological stream health in relation to landuse patterns in a watershed. We evaluated spatial characteristics of water quality characteristics and the ecological health of Dongjin-River basin, Korea in relation to regional landuse pattern. The ecological health was assessed by the multi-metric model of Index of Biological Integrity (IBI), and the water chemistry data were compared with values obtained from the health model. Results: Nutrient and organic matter pollution in Dongjin-River basin, Korea was influenced by land use pattern and the major point sources, so nutrients of TN and TP increased abruptly in Site 4 (Jeongeup Stream), which is directly influenced by wastewater treatment plants along with values of electric conductivity (EC), bacterial number, and sestonic chlorophyll-a. Similar results are shown in the downstream (S7) of Dongjin River. The degradation of chemical water quality in the downstream resulted in greater impairment of the ecological health, and these were also closely associated with the landuse pattern. Forest region had low nutrients (N, P), organic matter, and ionic content (as the EC), whereas urban and agricultural regions had opposite in the parameters. Linear regression analysis of the landuse (arable land; $A_L$) on chemicals indicated that values of $A_L$ had positive linear relations with TP ($R^2=0.643$, p < 0.01), TN ($R^2=0.502$, p < 0.05), BOD ($R^2=0.739$, p < 0.01), and suspended solids (SS; ($R^2=0.866$, p < 0.01), and a negative relation with TDN:TDP ratios ($R^2=0.719$, p < 0.01). Conclusions: Chemical factors were closely associated with land use pattern in the watershed, and these factors influenced the ecological health, based on the multimetric fish IBI model. Overall, the impairments of water chemistry and the ecological health in Dongjin-River basin were mainly attributes to point-sources and land-use patterns.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.91-102
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• 1995

The purposes of this paper are to find ways to detect ecotone between two eco'||'&'||'not;systems, measure the width and size of ecotone around the Mt. Pukhansan National Park, and investigate environmental impacts, if any, on the forest ecosystem of the park by human activities. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI) derived from TM data and the ana'||'&'||'not;lytical capabilities of GIS are used to investigate characteristics of the ecotone, or the impact zone, of the park. Major findings of the study can be summarized as follows: First, it was found that ecotone of the park could be identified from NDVI -distance curves deri"ed by a series of buffering op'||'&'||'not;erations. Second, NDVIs of all three years of the national park are about 14 percent higher than surrounding areas. Third, width of ecotone were found to be closely related to phenology, adjacent land use, environmental degradation, etc. Third, ecotone of the study area was nearly douvled during 1985-1993 period, which might be caused by heavy trampling of visitors. Thus it can be concluded that further studies are needed to find exact causes of the deterioration of plant communities of the ecotone of the park.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.435-449
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• 2010

Soils in the sloping uplands in Korea are subject to intensive land use with high input of agrochemicals and are vulnerable to soil erosion. Development of the environmentally sound land management strategy is essential for a sustainable production system in the sloping upland. This report addresses the status of upland agriculture and the best management practices for the uplands toward the sustainable agriculture. More than 60% of Korean lands are forest and only 21% are cultivating paddy and upland. Uplands are about 7% of the total lands and about 62% of the uplands are in the slopes higher than 7%. Due to the site-specificity of the upland, many managerial and environmental problems are occurring, such as severe erosion, shallow surface soils with rocky fragments, and loadings of non-point source (NPS) contaminants into the watershed. Based on the field trials, most of the sloping uplands were classified as Suitability Class III-V and the major limiting factor was slope and rock fragments. Due to this, soils were over-applied with N fertilizer, even though N rate was the recommendation. This resulted in decreases in yield, degradation of soil quality and increases in N loading to the leachate. Various case studies drew management practices toward sustainable production systems. The suggested BMP on the managerial, vegetative, and structural options were to practice buffer strips along the edges of fields and streams, winter cover crop, contour and mulching farming, detention weir, diversion drains, grassed waterway, and slope arrangement. With these options, conservation effects such as reductions in raindrop impact, flow velocity, runoff and sediment loss, and rill and gully erosion were observed. The proper management practice is a key element of the conservation of the soil and water in the sloping upland.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.33-40
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• 2011

In this study, we identified wood species used in manufacturing Streetcar No. 381 from Seoul Museum of History. This Streetcar No. 381 is an important cultural heritage as one of the 2 streetcars remained in Seoul. It is important to preserve this streetcar through restoration and to maintain without any damage or degradation. The information on species of wood members should be needed for its original restoration. Thus, 6 interior and 1 exterior wood members were sampled and identified microscopically. Among the 7 wood members identified, 2 were found to be douglas-fir ($Pseudotsuga$), 2 lauan ($Shorea$), 1 exotic hard pine of ponderosa group ($Pinus$), 1 larch ($Larix$), and 1 oak of cerris group ($Quercus$), respectively.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.147-149
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• 2007

White-rot fungi which degrade lignin can also degrade diverse recalcitrant compounds such as polymeric dyes, explosives, pesticides, and endocrine disrupting chemicals. Lignin degrading enzymes are involved in the degradation reactions, and introduction of foreign genes into a white-rot fungus is required in order to increase the degrading capacity. Genetic transformation experiment has been carried out in Irpex lacteus and Phlebia tremellosa to an antibiotic resistance. The transformation yields were 50-70 transformants/${\mu}g$ DNA and 15-25 transformants/${\mu}g$ DNA in I. lacteus and P. tremellosa, respectively. The stable replication of the plasmid was confirmed by PCR using the plasmid-specific primers, and many mutants were generated during this integration in both fungi.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.439-454
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• 2013

UN-REDD (United Nations programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) is currently being emerged as one of important mechanism to reduce carbon dioxide in relation to the deforestation. Although administrative boundary has already gained world-wide recognition as a typical method of monitoring unit in the process of GHG (Greenhouse Gas) reduction project, this approach did not provide a realistic evidence in the carbon sequestering monitoring in terms of UN-REDD; the meaningful comparison of land use patterns among watershed boundaries, interpretation for distribution trends of carbon density, calculation of opportunity cost, leakage management, etc. This research proposes a comparative evaluation framework in a more objective and quantitative way for carbon sequestering monitoring between administrative and watershed boundary approaches. Mt. Geumgang of North Korea was selected as a survey objective and an exhaustive and realistic comparison of carbon sequestration between the two approaches was conducted, based on change detection using TM satellite images. It was possible for drainage boundary approach to identify more detailed area-wide patterns of carbon distribution than traditional administrative one, such as estimations of state and trends, including historical trends, of land use / land cover and carbon density in the Mt. Geumgang. The distinctive changing trends in terms of carbon sequestration were specifically identified over the watershed boundary from 4.0% to 34.8% while less than 1% difference was observed in the administrative boundaries, which were resulting in almost 21-22%. It is anticipated that this research output could be used as a valuable reference to support more scientific and objective decision-making in introducing watershed boundary as carbon sequestering monitoring unit.