• Proceedings of The Korean Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Conference
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• 2013.11a
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• pp.48-53
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• 2013

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.492-497
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• 2022

Objectives: Women experience more stress in middle age than in other periods of their lives. Therefore, health management programs that enable middle-aged women to cope with and manage stress are needed. This study investigated the psychological effects of a meditation-focused forest therapy program among 53 middle-aged women living in urban areas in Korea. Methods: Participants were divided into 2 groups: one group underwent the program for 3 days in a forest, followed by 3 days in an urban environment, and the other group underwent the program for 3 days in the urban environment, followed by 3 days in the forest. The psychological effects of the forest therapy program were evaluated using the Profile of Mood States-Brief (POMS-B). Differences in mood state before and after the program conducted in the forest (experimental group) and in the urban environment (control group) were evaluated using the paired-samples t-test. Results: The program in the forest significantly reduced tension, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion among the domains of the POMS-B. The program in the urban area significantly reduced tension, but not depression, anger, fatigue, or confusion. Conclusions: Meditation-focused forest therapy programs are expected to contribute to promoting psychological health and enhancing the quality of life of middle-aged women.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.663-673
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• 2023

The purpose of this study was to scientifically activate the forest healing program activities for the elderly. The predicted mean vote (PMV) and predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PPD), which are indices of thermal comfort in the thermal environment, and degree of canopy closure were compared and analyzed. Based on this information, the study objective was to present the appropriate conditions for maintaining the best comfort for the elderly. Six deck road shelters, which are the most active locations in forest healing programs among the National Center for Forest Therapy, were selected as the study sites. The results indicated that in the case of the conditions of 1 clo (clothing insulation value) and 1 met (metabolic rate) at an air temperature of 19 to 21 degrees in September on the measurement date, the PMV values ranged between -1.85 and -0.98 at all sites, and PPD values ranged between 25.60% and 68.68%. On the other hand, in the case of 1.3 clo and 1.6 met conditions, the PMV values ranged between -0.08 and 0.23 for all sites and PPD values ranged between 5.40 and 6.18. As shown above, the difference in thermal environment comfort and satisfaction according to the condition of the amount of metabolism and the amount of clothing could be confirmed. In addition, an analysis of the relation between PPD and canopy closure suggested a significantly positive correlation between them, and it was found that canopy closure was a factor affecting thermal comfort. Studies on effects of forest thermal environmental comfort and canopy closure on forest healing program areas should be conducted extensively according to seasonal conditions to provide information that can be used for more effective forest healing programs.

• Proceedings of The Korean Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Conference
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.168-174
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• 2005

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.504-512
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• 2017

Forest roads are essential for forest resource management. This study investigated and compared forest road and road policy data in Korea and the United States to improve future forest road policies in Korea. As compared to the United States (9.5 m/ha), Korea has much lower forest road density (3.19 m/ha) and has been actively constructing new forest roads. The Korea Forest Service leads forest road policy in Korea by providing subsidies for new road construction in non-national forests. The budget for forest roads accounted for 9.1% of the total Korea Forest Service budget in 2010 - 2015 and 73.5% of it was used for new road construction. Korean forest road policies have been distinctively changed over the past decades; e.g., an increase in forest road mileage in the 1990s, an increase in forest road standards in the 2000s, and an increase in the mileage of higher standard roads in the 2010s. In comparison to Korea, the United States has focused on road maintenance and road decommissioning since 2001. The budget for forest roads accounted for 2.9% of the total USDA Forest Service budget in 2011 - 2016 and 82.2% of it was used for operations and maintenance. Our study results suggest that forest road policies in Korea should start focusing on road maintenance and decommissioning, if needed.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.37-51
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• 1998

This study was carried out to lead the scientific management of the urban forest by estimating the forest environment. Forest environmental information was constructed using IDRISI system based on survey data, soil, plant, and digital elevation data. Forest environmental information was consisted of soil depth, soil organic content, soil hardness and parent rock as a soil environmental factor, and forest community, tree age, crown density as a plant environmental factor. Plant activity and topographic environment also were analyzed by using remote sensing data and digital elevation data. Environmental function of urban forest was estimated based on results of soil conservation and forest productivity. 70% of urban forest is located in elevation of lower than 200m and 55% of forest area have the slope of lower than 15 degree. Analyzed soil conservation status and forest productivity were almost the same as the soil chemical properties of collected soil sample and the vegetation index estimated using remote sensing data, respectively. Thus, the constructed forest environmental information could be useful to give some ideas for management of urban forest ecosystem and establishment of environmental conservation planning, including forests, in Taejon. The best forest environmental function was appeared at the natural ecology preservation zone. Current natural parks and urban parks were appeared to establish the environmental conservation plan for further development. The worst forest environmental function was appeared at the forest near to the industrial area and an overall and systematic plan was required for the soil management and high forest productivity because these forest was developing a severe soil acidification and having a low forest productivity.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.507-517
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• 2010

Long-term monitoring was conducted to identify the runoff characteristics of non-point source according to the three forest types (deciduous forest, coniferous forest and mixed forest) in this study. Rainfall events of each deciduous forest, coniferous forest, and mixed forest were 10, 8, 12, respectively. Average runoff depth and coefficients of each forest type were founded to be coniferous forest and were followed by others in turns : deciduous forest, and mixed forest because various conditions (i.e., rainfall property, Antecedent Precipitation Index (API), soil property, slope, and forest management) could change runoff characteristics. In the analysis of the first flush phenomenon, it showed that SS and T-P were sensitive for the first flush phenomenon. The first flush phenomenon of them were showed differently by rainfall intensity, rainfall duration, and amount of rainfall. The research results indicated that range of the Event Mean Concentration (EMC) values in deciduous forest were 0.8~2.4 mg/L for $BOD_5$, 2.0~13.4 mg/L for $COD_{Mn}$, 1.3~2.9 mg/L for DOC, 1.150~3.913 mg/L for T-N, 0.010~0.350 mg/L for T-P and 3.1~291.8 mg/L for SS and in coniferous forest were 0.8~2.2 mg/L for $BOD_5$, 1.9~3.6 mg/L for $COD_{Mn}$, 1.0~2.0 mg/L for DOC, 1.025~2.957 mg/L for T-N, 0.002~0.084 mg/L for T-P and 0.8~5.4 mg/L for SS. Also, range of the EMC values in mixed forest were 1.3~2.3 mg/L for $BOD_5$, 2.4~4.8 mg/L for $COD_{Mn}$, 1.1~2.1 mg/L for DOC, 0.385~2.703 mg/L for T-N, 0.016~0.080 mg/L for T-P and 2.3~30.0 mg/L for SS.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.103 no.1
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• pp.105-112
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• 2014

The main purpose of this study is to measure spatio-temporal variation of forest tree volume based on the RCP(Representative Concentration Pathway) 8.5 scenario, targeting on Pinus densiflora forests which is the main tree species in South Korea. To estimate nationwide scale, $5^{th}$ forest type map and National Forest Inventory data were used. Also, to reflect the impact of change in place and climate on growth of forest trees, growth model reflecting the climate and topography features were applied. The result of the model validation, which compared the result of the model with the forest statistics of different cities and provinces, showed a high suitability. Considering the continuous climate change, volume of Pinus densiflora forest is predicted to increase from $131m^3/ha$ at present to $212.42m^3/ha$ in the year of 2050. If the climate maintains as the present, volume is predicted to increase to $221.92m^3/ha$. With the climate change, it is predicted that most of the region, except for some of the alpine region, will have a decrease in growth rate of Pinus densiflora forest. The growth rate of Pinus densiflora forest will have a greater decline, especially in the coastal area and the southern area. With the result of this study, it will be possible to quantify the effect of climate change on the growth of Pinus densiflora forest according to spatio-temporal is possible. The result of the study can be useful in establishing the forest management practices, considering the adaptation of climate change.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Environment and Ecology Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.149-152
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• 2006

• Proceedings of The Korean Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Conference
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• 2013.11a
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• pp.37-41
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• 2013