• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2013

Objectives: This study is planned to assess the trend of occupational injuries in Korea from 2001 to 2010. Methods: Ten years of occupational injuries, from 2001 to 2010, were analyzed in order to investigate the changing profiles according to the various characteristics of injuries; economic sectors, age of the injured, and type of injuries. The changing profile of occupational injuries was investigated by comparison with an index-created relative value based on the number of cases of reference category. Results: The fatalities of construction, forest, agriculture, and service show the increasing trend. The nonfatal occupational injuries of the manufacturing sector were higher than those of other sectors in every year but the fatal occupational injuries of construction workers were higher than those of the manufacturing sector. Occupational injuries occurring due to amputation and those of slip and trip increased. The number of occupational injuries for the worker groups of 24 years old and below decreased and 45 years old and above increased. In comparison to the figure of fall from height, the figures of slip and trip or caught in equipment are higher in every calendar year. Conclusion: This study find out construction, forest, agriculture, and service sectors, aged worker with 45 years old and over can be target population for the strategies of occupational safety.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.107 no.4
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• pp.428-435
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to analyze the satisfaction level of regular safety education to reduce and prevent accidents of forest workers. To achieve this goal, a questionnaire survey targeting 362 members of forest working group in National Forestry Cooperative Federation on the status of safety education, requirements for improving safety education, and satisfaction level of safety education. As a result of the analysis, the majority of the respondents said that the safety education should be improved by adding more training related to forestry work and practical education rather than the current lecture. In the effective safety education cycle, 43.8% of respondents said that the most effective once a week, and the most important factors that affect the satisfaction of safety education were the safety method and teaching ability, which were statistically significant.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.23 no.4_2
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• pp.593-601
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• 2020

This study was conducted to analyze the physical strain with heart rate monitor in timber harvesting operations in order to reduce occupational accidents. The timber harvesting activities are manual cutting(felling, limbing and bucking) with a chainsaw and extraction by cable yarder. The study took place on Japanese larch stand. The average height was 26m and average diameter at breast height(DBH) was 3 7cm. The havest unit was gentle slope to steep slope. Results showed that the heart rate increases for chocking, felling, limbing and bucking were 94.0%, 87.9%, 84.8% and 56.4% respectively. The rate of Work Load Index was higher in the limbing(61.4%) activity than other activities chocking(55.2%), felling(54.1%) and bucking(32.1%). During 50% working heart rate test it was found that limbing(1.09), chocking(1.05) and felling(1.04) was exposed to high work intensity compared to bucking(0.83). The results showed that maximum acceptable work times(felling, chocking and limbing) were 2.30 hour, 1.85 hour and 1.60 hour respectively. To avoid occupational accidents, timber harvest workers may use a suitable working hour schedule to felling, chocking, limbing.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.363-371
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• 2021

Forest operations like timber harvesting have already been mechanized to reduce hazards to the worker and increase productivity. However, timber harvesting operations have still been considered potentially dangerous and expensive on steep terrain. Teleoperation, to control the timber harvesting machine at a distance, has the potential to improve the safety, productivity and efficiency of harvesting operations on steep terrain. To verify the effects of teleoperation, an experimental prototype system of a monitor image-based teleoperation was constructed using a real forestry machine. In this study, the productivity of excavator based grapple loader, which is one of the most used mechanized harvesting equipment in the timber production, was analyzed using time-study method. Factors like skill and age of operators, influencing loader productivity in timber loading operation were also evaluated by statistical analysis. Productivity analysis results showed that less experienced operators were more productive than experienced operators for teleoperation through image of monitors in the operator cabin. These results are shown to be unfamiliar to the monitor image and different loading operation pattern by operators. According to the results, the monitor image-based teleoperation system of forestry machine need to improve the resolution and installation position of camera. It was expected that additional studies will be needed for real-time remote control of forestry machine in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.112 no.2
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• pp.217-229
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• 2023

Forest projects often apply construction industry labor rates, without considering the demanding work conditions and labor intensity unique to forest operations, resulting in workplace issues. This study aims to analyze forest operations' characteristics and wage survey methods in other fields to establish a framework for surveying the wages of forest workers. The developed framework was tested through direct surveys conducted with all forest operation companies. Survey items included actual wages by occupation, identification and removal of outliers using quartile deviation, and occupation-based wage calculation. Results revealed that the appropriate wages for 2022 were as follows: KRW 163,376 for general workers, KRW 221,407 for special workers, KRW 250,045 for work leaders, and KRW 239,863 for wood cutters. These figures were 16.27% higher than those derived from the standard construction wage survey. The developed framework was validated by comparing the appropriate wages with both the standard construction wage survey and the forestry workers' wage. The results indicated that the wages calculated using the developed framework were 4.5% more similar to the forestry workers' wage compared with those from the standard construction wage survey. Consequently, the standard construction wage survey was deemed unsuitable for forest projects. To ensure efficient forest operations, it is imperative to conduct wage surveys using the developed framework over multiple years to accumulate sufficient data.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.1-8
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• 2021

In this paper, we propose the construction of an IOT that monitors foresters' physical abnormalities in real time, performs emergency measures, and provides alarms for natural disasters or heatstroke such as a nearby forest fire or landslide. Nodes provided to foresters include 6-axis sensors, temperature sensors, GPS, and LoRa, and transmit the measured data to the network server through the gateway using LoRa communication. The network server uses 6-axis sensor data to determine whether or not a forester has any signs of abnormal body, and performs emergency measures by tracking GPS location. After analyzing the temperature data, it provides an alarm when there is a possibility of heat stroke or when a forest fire or landslide occurs in the vicinity. In this paper, it was confirmed that the real-time detection of physical abnormalities of foresters and the establishment of disaster early warning IOT is possible by analyzing the data obtained by constructing a node and a gateway and constructing a network server.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.103 no.1
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• pp.129-136
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• 2014

This study aims to investigate the effect of frequency of using forest environment on workers' stress. Workers in medical and counseling industry, which is recently known to require heavy emotional burden and thus cause a lot of stress and burnout syndrome, participated in the study. We classified 370 subjects, who were working at medical and counseling service institutions in Seoul metropolitan area, into two groups according to frequency of using forest environment by conducting a screening survey. 69 subjects submitted written consent and were recruited for either forest therapy program or control-group test; the "high" group (n=27) at the high frequency of using forest environment and the "low" group (n=42) at the low level. We measured the level of stress by using psychosocial indicators such as Worker's Stress Response Inventory (WSRI), Recovery Experience Questionnaire (REQ), and Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) and biological ones such as heart rate variability (HRV), cortisol, and Natural Killer cell (NK cell). The results suggested that the level of stress differed by frequency. The "high" group showed significantly low scores in the depression and work sub-scale and the total score of WSRI, emotional exhaustion, professional efficacy and total score of MBI-GS, and high scores in the total score of REQ. Similar tendencies were observed in the most of other indicators of psychosocial measures. Regarding the biological indicators, the "high" group showed the highest SDNN, RMSSD and TP measures of HRV and NK Cell activity and the low cortisol, although the statistical power did not reach the significant level. Our results suggest that the subjects who use forest environment frequently show favorable stress level both psychologically and biologically.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.607-616
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• 2019

On account of the lack of education of Brazilian worker, this paper analyzed the characteristics of those professionals working in the production sector of timber houses. A sectoral survey was carried out with respective entrepreneurs to investigate the available professionals (career and contract types), evaluate the demands of skilled workers, and indicate solutions to improve the quality of labor qualification. Similarly, over 65% of sampled producers presented both direct-hired and outsourced workforce. For such contract ways, Civil Engineers and Architects were the main careers. Carpenters, Civil Engineers and Architects experienced on timber were the main sectoral demands. Timber Engineers have good potentials of service for this sector. The creation of courses on timber products can emerge as a key alternative to train people.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.73 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 1986

The processing times of the works, chainsaw felling, axe trimming and hand skidding to the corridor, by one-man-work method per single pole timber were investigated in the thinning young Japanese larch stand at the Training Forests of the Forest Work Tranining Center in Kangwon-do. The works were performed by a skilled worker with the craftman qualification and 69 trees were cut. Time was checked at intervals of 25/100 minute by the multimoment method and the worker's efficiency was evaluated for every cycle. Total working time was 8.11 hours of which 90% was for thinning work and 10% for cleaning work. Of the total working hours, 82.7% was net working time, 12.3% was general working time and 4.9% was non-valuated time. Of the net working time, 5.9hours, for only thinning, 20.9% was spent on moving to the feeling tree, 27.1% was spent on felling, 40.5% was spent on trimming and 11.5% was spent on skidding to corridor. Net chainsaw operating time was 0.94 hour which included 0.2 hour for cleaning work. Of the net chainsaw operating time, 0.94 hour, 66% was operating time and 34% was idle running time. The basic and general working times by DBH classes with application of 130% worker's efficiency calculated from regression equations were shown in table 1. For better practical using of this table, the simplified proposal was given in table 2.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.606-614
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• 2017

This study analyzed the effect of forest therapy program on reduction of stress of teachers and their positive and negative emotions based on the survey of 221 teachers who participated in the overnight Happiness School Edu-healing Camp held for teachers by the National Center for Forest Healing. For data analysis, a paired sample t-test was conducted using the SPSS 24.0 program to examine the difference in the stress reaction index of teachers and their positive and negative emotions before and after their participation in the forest therapy program. The results indicated that teachers who participated in the program showed a significant decrease in the stress response index and the values of sub-domain such as physical symptoms, depression symptoms, and anger symptoms. Moreover, all teachers exhibited a significant decrease in stress. This result verifies that the forest therapy program is effective in reducing the stress of teachers and their negative emotions. These results are expected to be used to promote more active forest therapy programs for teachers exposed to a high level of stress.