• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.6_1
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• pp.993-1001
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• 2017

Drought is a worldwide natural disaster with extensively adverse impacts on natural ecosystems, agricultural products, social communities and regional economy. Various global satellite observations, including SMAP soil moisture, GRACE terrestrial water storage, Terra and Aqua vegetation productivity, evapotranspiration, and satellite precipitation measures are currently used to characterize seasonal timing and inter-annual variations of regional water supply pattern, vegetation growth, drought events, and its associated influence ecosystems and human society. We suggest the satellite monitoring system development to quantify meteorological, eco-hydrological, and socio-ecological factors related to drought events, and characterize spatial and temporal drought patterns in Korea. The combination of these complementary remote sensing observations(visible to microwave bands) provide an effective means for evaluating regional variations in the timing, frequency, and duration of drought, and availability of water supply influencing vegetation and crop growth. This integrated drought monitoring could help national capacity to deal with natural disasters.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.305-314
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• 2008

As forest land takes up 65% of the Korean peninsula, there have been continuing conflicts between the development and conservation of forest land. As the income level has changed over time, the usage of forest land in society has changed. There has been increasing demands for forest land for urban development and recreational use. On the other hand, a large proportion of the land is required to be preserved for the forest and the natural ecosystem in it. The existing management system for the forest land has been designed focusing on the management of the trees on the land, and not the land itself. Due to this limitation, the current management system of forest land has failed to protect the forest land from being developed indiscreetly, making it difficult to conserve and develop the forest land in an efficient way. A major question in forest land management is how to integrate economic use activities with the supporting ecosystems to maximize performance of the ecological-economic system. In order to promote sustainable use of forest resources, and to achieve efficient forest land management, it is prerequisite to evaluation on forest resources of natural ecosystems. Quantitative measures are needed that signify how necessary the services and products of forested ecosystems are to human endeavors. In this study, the natural wealth provided by forest land was quantified based on emergy synthesis. Emergy is a universal measure of real wealth of the work of nature and society made on a common basis. Thus, Calculations of emergy provide a basis for making choices about environment and economy following the general public policy to maximize real wealth. The goals of forest land management to achieve balance between the ecology and economy of its integrated system and to foster equity among the diverse outcomes of the forest land were assessed with emergy. Emergy was demonstrated to holistically integrated and quantify the interconnections of a coupled nature-human system allowing the goals of ecological balance and outcome equity to be measured quantitatively. Doing so will provide a better understanding of the basis of forest land wealth and the consequences of management decisions.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.255-265
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• 2011

Marine ecosystems are often characterized by a high biological diversity, and it corresponds to a high chemical diversity. Up to present, more than 20,000 new bioactive substances have been isolated from marine organisms, where considerable numbers of these naturally occurring derivatives are developed as potential candidates for pharmaceutical application. In this process, screening of natural products from marine organisms that could potentially inhibit the expression of metalloproteinases has gained a huge popularity. Cancer is considered as one of the deadliest diseases in the medical field. Matrix metalloproteinase (MMPs) can degrade extracellular matrix (ECM) components and play important roles in a variety of biological and pathological processes. Matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors (MMPIs) have been identified as potential therapeutic candidates for metastasis, arthritis, chronic inflammation and wrinkle formation.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.14-21
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• 2016

Many improper development action were performed at subsurface environment, because there were not any definition about subsurface environment in Korea. The purpose of this study was to establich a definition on subsurface environment. Subsurface environment could be divided by subsurface natural environment and subsurface living environment. The soil, groundwater, ecosystems, landscapes, underground space (naturally occurred) were included in subsurface natural environment. And space and facilities used by human were classified as subsurface living environment.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.587-592
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to identify the controlling factors to construct tidal flat ecosystems having similar characteristics as natural ones. We transplanted the soil in a constructed tidal flat to a natural one and vice versa. Parameters monitored after these transplantations were silt content, organic matter, bacterial population and oxidation-reduction potential. Moreover, the relationship among silt content, organic matter and bacterial population was investigated by laboratory column experiment. The silt content, organic matter, bacterial population and vertical profile of oxidation-reduction potential in the soil transplanted from the constructed tidal flat to the natural one changed to similar values to those in the natural one. On the contrary, all the parameters for the soil transplanted from the natural tidal flat to the constructed one changed to similar values as those in the constructed one. The silt contents in thses two transplanted solis were in proportion to the organic carbon contents and bacterial population. Similarly, the bacterial population in laboratory column experiment increased with the increase in silt and organic matter contents. It seemed to be important to select a place to enhance accumulative of silt and/or to maintain the silt content by hydrodynamic control of seawater in order to construct a tidal flat having similar characteristics as natural one.

• Journal of Microbiology
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.281-285
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• 2007

Cold environments, including polar and alpine regions, are colonized by a wide diversity of micro-organisms able to thrive at low temperatures. There is evidence of a wide range of metabolic activities in alpine cold ecosystems. Like polar microorganisms, alpine microorganisms playa key ecological role in their natural habitats for nutrient cycling, litter degradation, and many other processes. A number of studies have demonstrated the capacity of alpine microorganisms to degrade efficiently a wide range of hydrocarbons, including phenol, phenol-related compounds and petroleum hydrocarbons, and the feasibility of low-temperature bioremediation of European alpine soils by stimulating the degradation capacity of indigenous microorganisms has also been shown.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.355-355
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• 2018

Natural hydrology systems, including high flow and low flow events, are important for aquatic ecosystem health and are essential for controlling the structure and function of ecological processes in river ecosystems. Ecosystem responses to flow changes have been studied in a variety of ways, but little attention has been given to how episodic typhoons and atmospheric circulation patterns can change these hydrologic regime-ecological response relationships. In this diagnostic study, we use an empirical approach to investigate the salient features of interactions between atmospheric circulation, climate, and runoff in the five major Korean river basins.

• Proceedings of The Korean Society of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Conference
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• 2019.08a
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• pp.246-246
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• 2019

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.578-587
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• 2022

Korea, as the world's 7^th largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has raised the national greenhouse gas reduction target as international regulations have been strengthened. As it is possible to utilize coastal and marine ecosystems as important nature-based solutions (NbS) for implementing climate change mitigation or adaptation plans, the blue carbon ecosystem is now receiving attention. Blue carbon refers to carbon that is deposited and stored for a long period after carbon dioxide (CO₂) is absorbed as biomass by coastal ecosystems or oceanic ecosystems through photosynthesis. Currently, there are only three blue carbon ecosystems officially recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrasses. However, the results of new research on the high CO₂ sequestration and storage capacity of various new blue carbon sinks, such as seaweeds, microalgae, coral reefs, and non-vegetated tidal flats, have been continuously reported to the academic community recently. The possibility of IPCC international accreditation is gradually increasing through scientific verification related to calculations. In this review, the current status and potential value of seaweeds, seagrass fields, and non-vegetated tidal flats, which are sources of blue carbon on the east coast, are discussed. This paper confirms that seaweed resources are the most effective NbS in the East Sea of Korea. In addition, we would like to suggest the direction of research and development (R&D) and utilization so that new blue carbon sinks can obtain international IPCC certification in the near future.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.177-185
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• 2009

Dryland species and ecosystems have developed unique strategies to cope with low and sporadic rainfall. They are highly resilient and recover quickly from prevailing disturbances such as fires, herbivore pressure and drought. Dryland people have engineered pastoral and farming systems, which are adapted to these conditions and have sustained the livelihoods of dryland people for centuries. In this article, we present the status of potentials and threats to dryland biodiversity and explore options for its conservation and sustainable use. Findings of the research can be summarized as follows: (i) The ecosystem goods and services are highly valued by the community but mechanism for wise use of the resources has disappeared, (ii) forests are under the ownership of the government but the local community is the realistic custodian of the forests through village leaderships and environmental committees; (iii) the immediate major threat to dryland biodiversity held in the forests appears to be the degradation of ecosystems and habitats caused by new and powerful forces of environmental degradation such as large scale irrigation of rice farms, poverty-induced overexploitation of natural resources, and disappearance and ignorance of traditional institutions for management of dryland biodiversity. These new forms of disturbances often overpower the legendary resilience of dryland ecosystems and constitute potentially serious threats to dryland biodiversity. Forests, wetlands and oases all of which are micro hot spots of dryland biodiversity, appear to be particularly vulnerable hence the need to set up some rules and regulations for sustainable utilization of these resources.