• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.36 no.4
• /
• pp.433-441
• /
• 2022

Light pollution is one of the factors that disturb coastal and island ecosystems. This study examined the factors causing light pollution in the islands in Daedohaehaesang National Park using nighttime satellite images. This study selected 101 islands with an area of 100,000 m² or more in Daedohaehaesang National Park, and measured the levels of light pollution of the selected islands by calculating mean nighttime radiance recorded in VIIRS DNB monthly images for January, April, August, and October 2019. Of seven districts of the park, The highest mean nighttime radiance was recorded in Geumodo district (17,666nW/m²/sr), followed by Geonumdo·Baekdo, Narodo, Soando·Cheongsando districts. By season, mean nighttime radiance in October was the highest at 9,509nW/m²/sr, followed by August, January, and April. Regression analyses show that the total floor area and the number of lighthouses in a 5 km buffer area had a statistically significant effect on mean nighttime radiance at all times, but those within the island did not, indicating that light pollution in islands in a national park where land development is strictly restricted is influenced by artificial lights in nearby areas. However, the total floor area of an island significantly affected mean nighttime radiance only in August, which appears to be attributed to the impact of intensive use of artificial light by visitors during summer vacation. The size of an island had a negative (-) effect on nighttime radiance. This negative effect suggests that light pollution is a type of ecological edge effect, i.e., the smaller island is more likely to have a relatively larger proportion of edge area that is affected by light emitted from the neighboring areas. The results of this study indicate that managing artificial lights in nearby areas is necessary to mitigate light pollution in islands in marine and coastal national parks.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.281-298
• /
• 2023

Continuous research efforts are being devoted to unmanned mobile platforms for lunar exploration. There is an ongoing demand for real-time information processing to accurately determine the positioning and mapping of areas of interest on the lunar surface. To apply deep learning processing and analysis techniques to practical rovers, research on software integration and optimization is imperative. In this study, a foundational investigation has been conducted on real-time analysis of virtual lunar base construction site images, aimed at automatically quantifying spatial information of key objects. This study involved transitioning from an existing region-based object recognition algorithm to a boundary box-based algorithm, thus enhancing object recognition accuracy and inference speed. To facilitate extensive data-based object matching training, the Batch Hard Triplet Mining technique was introduced, and research was conducted to optimize both training and inference processes. Furthermore, an improved software system for object recognition and identical object matching was integrated, accompanied by the development of visualization software for the automatic matching of identical objects within input images. Leveraging satellite simulative captured video data for training objects and moving object-captured video data for inference, training and inference for identical object matching were successfully executed. The outcomes of this research suggest the feasibility of implementing 3D spatial information based on continuous-capture video data of mobile platforms and utilizing it for positioning objects within regions of interest. As a result, these findings are expected to contribute to the integration of an automated on-site system for video-based construction monitoring and control of significant target objects within future lunar base construction sites.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
• /
• v.40 no.4
• /
• pp.363-373
• /
• 2022

On April 29, 2021 (1st), June 2 (2nd), and August 17 (3rd), we surveyed benthic macroinvertebrates fauna at Muljangori-oreum wetland in Bonggae-dong, Jeju Island, Korea. Muljangori-oreum wetland was divided into four areas. The survey was conducted in three accessible areas (areas 1-3). As a result of habitat environment analysis, the average monthly temperature from 2017 to 2021 was the highest in July and August and the lowest in December and February. This pattern was repeated. As a result of analyzing changes in vegetation and water surface area through satellite images, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) increased from February to July and decreased after July. Normalized difference water index (NDWI) was analyzed to show an inverse relationship. A total of 21 species from 13 families were identified in the qualitative survey and a total of 412 individuals of 24 species from 15 families were identified in the quantitative survey. A total of 26 species from 17 families, 8 orders, 3 classes, and 2 phyla of benthic macroinvertebrates were identified. The dominant species was Chronomidae spp. with 132 individuals (32.04%). Noterus japonicus was a subdominant species with 71 individuals (17.23%). As a result of comparative analysis of species identified in this study and the literature, it was confirmed that species diversity was high for Coleoptera and Odonata. Main functional feeding groups (FFGs) were found to be predators. Habitat orientation groups (HOGs) were found to be swimmers. In OHC (Odonata, Hemiptera, and Coleoptera) group, 17 species (73.91%) in 2021, 23 species (79.31%) in 2016, 26 species (86.67%) in 2018, and 19 species (79.17%) in 2019 were identified. Cybister japonicus, an endangered species II, was confirmed to inhabit Muljangori-oreum wetland in the literature. Ten individuals (2.43%) were also confirmed to inhabit Muljangori-oreum wetland in 2021. Therefore, continuous management and habitat protection are required to maintain the habitat environment of C. japonicus in Muljangori-oreum wetland.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.39 no.3
• /
• pp.325-338
• /
• 2023

Korean fir (Abies koreana Wilson) is one of the most important environmental indicator tree species for assessing climate change impacts on coniferous forests in the Korean Peninsula. However, due to the nature of alpine and subalpine regions, it is difficult to conduct regular field surveys of Korean fir, which is mainly distributed in regions with altitudes greater than 1,000 m. Therefore, this study analyzed the vegetation change trend of Korean fir using regularly observed remote sensing data. Specifically, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), land surface temperature (LST), and precipitation data from Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievalsfor GPM from September 2003 to 2020 for Hallasan and Jirisan were used to analyze vegetation changes and their association with environmental variables. We identified a decrease in NDVI in 2020 compared to 2003 for both sites. Based on the NDVI difference maps, areas for healthy vegetation and high mortality of Korean fir were selected. Long-term NDVI time-series analysis demonstrated that both Hallasan and Jirisan had a decrease in NDVI at the high mortality areas (Hallasan: -0.46, Jirisan: -0.43). Furthermore, when analyzing the long-term fluctuations of Korean fir vegetation through the Hodrick-Prescott filter-applied NDVI, LST, and precipitation, the NDVI difference between the Korean fir healthy vegetation and high mortality sitesincreased with the increasing LST and decreasing precipitation in Hallasan. Thissuggests that the increase in LST and the decrease in precipitation contribute to the decline of Korean fir in Hallasan. In contrast, Jirisan confirmed a long-term trend of declining NDVI in the areas of Korean fir mortality but did not find a significant correlation between the changes in NDVI and environmental variables (LST and precipitation). Further analyses of environmental factors, such as soil moisture, insolation, and wind that have been identified to be related to Korean fir habitats in previous studies should be conducted. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using satellite data for long-term monitoring of Korean fir ecosystems and investigating their changes in conjunction with environmental conditions. Thisstudy provided the potential forsatellite-based monitoring to improve our understanding of the ecology of Korean fir.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.275-291
• /
• 2023

Global warming has made the polar regions more accessible, leading to increased demand for the construction of new resource-development plants in oil-rich permafrost regions. The selection of locations of resource-development plants in permafrost regions should consider the surface displacement resulting from thawing and freezing of the active layer of permafrost. However, few studies have considered surface displacement in the selection of optimal locations of resource-development plants in permafrost region. In this study, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis using a range of geospatial information variables was performed to select optimal locations for the construction of oil-sands development plants in the permafrost region of southern Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, including consideration of surface displacement. The surface displacement velocity was estimated by applying the Small BAseline Subset Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technique to time-series Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar images acquired from February 2007 to March 2011. ERA5 reanalysis data were used to generate geospatial data for air temperature, surface temperature, and soil temperature averaged for the period 2000~2010. Geospatial data for roads and railways provided by Statistics Canada and land cover maps distributed by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation were also used in the AHP analysis. The suitability of sites analyzed using land cover, surface displacement, and road accessibility as the three most important geospatial factors was validated using the locations of oil-sand plants built since 2010. The sensitivity of surface displacement to the determination of location suitability was found to be very high. We confirm that surface displacement should be considered in the selection of optimal locations for the construction of new resource-development plants in permafrost regions.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.247-253
• /
• 2023

As climate change problem has recently become serious, studies are being conducted to identify carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission dynamics based on satellite data to reduce emissions. It is also very important to analyze spatial patterns by estimating and mapping CO₂ emissions dynamic. Therefore, in this study, CO₂ emissions in the Korean Peninsula from 2013 to 2020 were estimated and mapped. To spatially estimate and map emissions, we use the enhanced vegetation index adjusted nighttime light index, an index that combines nighttime light (NTL) and vegetation index, to map both areas where NTL is observed and areas where NTL is not observed. In order to spatially estimate and map CO₂ emissions, the total annual emissions of the Korean Peninsula were calculated, resulting in an increase of 11% from 2013 to 2017 and a decrease of 13% from 2017 to 2020. As a result of the mapping, it was confirmed that the spatial pattern of CO₂ emissions in the Korean Peninsula were concentrated in urban areas. After being divided into 17 regions, which included the downtown area, the metropolitan area accounted for roughly 40% of CO₂ emissions in the Korean Peninsula. The region that exhibited the most significant change from 2013 to 2020 was Sejong City, showing a 96% increase.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.207-221
• /
• 2023

This study suggests deep neural network models for estimating air temperature with Level 1B (L1B) datasets of GEO-KOMPSAT-2A (GK-2A). The temperature at 1.5 m above the ground impact not only daily life but also weather warnings such as cold and heat waves. There are many studies to assume the air temperature from the land surface temperature (LST) retrieved from satellites because the air temperature has a strong relationship with the LST. However, an algorithm of the LST, Level 2 output of GK-2A, works only clear sky pixels. To overcome the cloud effects, we apply a deep neural network (DNN) model to assume the air temperature with L1B calibrated for radiometric and geometrics from raw satellite data and compare the model with a linear regression model between LST and air temperature. The root mean square errors (RMSE) of the air temperature for model outputs are used to evaluate the model. The number of 95 in-situ air temperature data was 2,496,634 and the ratio of datasets paired with LST and L1B show 42.1% and 98.4%. The training years are 2020 and 2021 and 2022 is used to validate. The DNN model is designed with an input layer taking 16 channels and four hidden fully connected layers to assume an air temperature. As a result of the model using 16 bands of L1B, the DNN with RMSE 2.22℃ showed great performance than the baseline model with RMSE 3.55℃ on clear sky conditions and the total RMSE including overcast samples was 3.33℃. It is suggested that the DNN is able to overcome cloud effects. However, it showed different characteristics in seasonal and hourly analysis and needed to append solar information as inputs to make a general DNN model because the summer and winter seasons showed a low coefficient of determinations with high standard deviations.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.40 no.1
• /
• pp.19-31
• /
• 2024

Ports are vital social infrastructures that significantly influence both people's lives and a country's economy. In South Korea, the aging of port infrastructure combined with the increased frequency of various natural disasters underscores the necessity of displacement monitoring for safety management of the port. In this study, the time-series displacements of Yeongilman Port and surrounding areas in Pohang, South Korea, were measured by applying Permanent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PSInSAR) to Sentinel-1 SAR images collected from the satellite's ascending (February 2017-July 2023) and descending (February 2017-December 2021) nodes, and the displacement associated with the 2017 Pohang earthquake in the port was analyzed. The southern (except the southernmost) and central parts of Yeongilman Port showed large displacements attributed to construction activities for about 10 months at the beginning of the observation period, and the coseismic displacement caused by the Pohang earthquake was up to 1.6 cm of the westward horizontal motion and 0.5 cm of subsidence. However, little coseismic displacement was observed in the southernmost part of the port, where reclamation was completed last, and in the northern part of the oldest port. This represents that the weaker the consolidation of the reclaimed soil in the port, the more vulnerable it is to earthquakes, and that if the soil is very weakly consolidated due to ongoing reclamation, it would not be significantly affected by earthquakes. Summer subsidence and winter uplift of about 1 cm have been repeatedly observed every year in the entire area of Yeongilman Port, which is attributed to volume changes in the reclaimed soil due to temperature changes. The ground of the 1st and 2nd General Industrial Complexes adjacent to Yeongilman Port subsided during the observation period, and the rate of subsidence was faster in the 1st Industrial Complex. The 1st Industrial Complex was observed to have a westward horizontal displacement of 3 mm and a subsidence of 6 mm as the coseismic displacement of the Pohang earthquake, while the 2nd Industrial Complex was analyzed to have been little affected by the earthquake. The results of this study allowed us to identify the time-series displacement characteristics of Yeongilman Port and understand the impact of earthquakes on the stability of a port built by coastal reclamation.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.258-266
• /
• 2023

This study analyzed methodologies for estimating carbon stocks of perennial woody crops and the research cases in overseas countries. As a result, we found that Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, and Japan are using the stock-difference method, while Austria, Denmark, and Germany are estimating the change in the carbon stock based on the gain-loss method. In some overseas countries, the researches were conducted on estimating the carbon stock change using image data as tier 3 phase beyond the research developing country-specific factors as tier 2 phase. In South Korea, convergence studies as the third stage were conducted in forestry field, but advanced research in the agricultural field is at the beginning stage. Based on these results, we suggest directions for the following four future researches: 1) securing national-specific factors related to emissions and removals in the agricultural field through the development of allometric equation and carbon conversion factors for perennial woody crops to improve the completeness of emission and removals statistics, 2) implementing policy studies on the cultivation area calculation refinement with fruit tree-biomass-based maturity, 3) developing a more advanced estimation technique for perennial woody crops in the agricultural sector using allometric equation and remote sensing techniques based on the agricultural and forestry satellite scheduled to be launched in 2025, and to establish a matrix and monitoring system for perennial woody crop cultivation areas in the agricultural sector, Lastly, 4) estimating soil carbon stocks change, which is currently estimated by treating all agricultural areas as one, by sub-land classification to implement a dynamic carbon cycle model. This study suggests a detailed guideline and advanced methods of carbon stock change calculation for perennial woody crops, which supports 2050 Carbon Neutral Strategy of Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs and activate related research in agricultural sector.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.44 no.6
• /
• pp.643-654
• /
• 2023

The West Philippine Basin, an oceanic basin half the size of the Philippine Sea Plate, lies in the western part of the plate and south of the Korean Peninsula on the Eurasian Plate. It subducts beneath the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Islands bordering the Ryukyu Trench and the Philippine Trench with 25-50% of this basin already consumed. However, the history of the opening of the basin's southern region has been a topic of debate. The non-transform discontinuity formed during the seafloor spreading is similar to the transform fault boundaries normally perpendicular to mid-ocean ridge axes; however, it was created irregularly due to ridge propagations caused by variations of mantle convection attributable to magma supply changes. By analyzing high-resolution multi-beam echo-sounding data, we confirmed that the non-transform discontinuity due to the propagating rift evolved in the entire basin and that the abyssal hill strike direction changed from E-W to NNW-SSE from the fossil spreading center. In the early stage of basin extension, the Amami-Sankaku Basin was rotated 90 degrees clockwise from its current orientation, and it bordered the Palau Basin along the Mindanao Fracture Zone. The Amami-Sankaku Basin separated from the Palau Basin while the spreading of the West Philippine Basin began with a counter-clockwise rotation. This indicates that the non-transform discontinuities formed by a sudden change in magma supply due to the drift of the Philippine Sea Plate and simultaneously with the rapid changes in the spreading direction from ENE-WSW to N-S. The Palau Basin was considered to be the sub-south of the West Philippine Basin, but recent studies have shown that it extends into an independent system. Evidence from sediment layers and crustal thickness hints at the possibility of its existence before the West Philippine Basin opened, although its evolution continues to be debated. We performed a combined analysis using high-resolution multi-beam bathymetry and satellite gravity data to uncover new insights into the evolution of the West Philippine Basin. This information illuminates the complex plate interactions and provides a crucial contribution toward understanding the opening history of the basin and the Philippine Sea Plate.