• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.422-431
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• 2009

This study was to provide basic data for aquatic ecosystem research using fishes. Field sampling was carried out at five selected sites of Gap Stream, and fish samples, especially for a selection of sentinel species were collected three times in June, September, and October 2007. We analyzed total length distribution of Zacco platypus in relation with the season and the sampling sites, and then compared with total body weight, condition factor (K), and age distribution of the fish. The fish population data were compared with physico-chemical water quality, obtained from the Ministry of Environment, Korea. Water quality analysis showed a significant nutrient enrichment, based on total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP), and organic matter pollution, based on biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the Site 5, which is directly influenced by wastewater disposal plant (WDP). Population analysis of the sentinel species showed that the total number of individuals, age distribution, and the population size-structure were influenced by the effluents from the WDP, and that reproductive failure of young-age population were evident in Site 5. According to the relation analysis of total weight to K, the disturbed population was mainly attributed to combined effects of habitat modifications and chemical degradations. Regression analysis of K values against water quality parameters showed significant (p<0.05) positive relations with nutrient and organic matter contents. Our data suggest that the population structure using a sentinel fish species reflected the ambient water quality in the stream and that diagnosis of aquatic ecosystem health using Z. platypus population may be practical for water resource and ecosystem conservations.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.35 no.6_2
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• pp.1037-1052
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• 2019

We had developed in preceding study a classification model for the Korean pine and Larch with an accuracy of 98 percent using Hyperion and Sentinel-2 satellite images, texture information, and geometric information as the first step for tree species mapping in the inaccessible North Korea. Considering a share of major tree species in North Korea, the classification model needs to be expanded as it has a large share of Oak(29.5%), Pine (12.7%), Fir (8.2%), and as well as Larch (17.5%) and Korean pine (5.8%). In order to classify 5 major tree species, national forest type map of South Korea was used to build 11,039 training and 2,330 validation data. Sentinel-2 data was used to derive spectral information, and PlanetScope data was used to generate texture information. Geometric information was built from SRTM DEM data. As a machine learning algorithm, Random forest was used. As a result, the overall accuracy of classification was 80% with 0.80 kappa statistics. Based on the training data and the classification model constructed through this study, we will extend the application to Mt. Baekdu and North and South Goseong areas to confirm the applicability of tree species classification on the Korean Peninsula.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.52-67
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• 2020

Recently, the Arctic has been exposed to snow-covered land due to melting permafrost every year, and the Korea Geographic Information Institute(NGII) provides polar spatial information service by establishing spatial information of the polar region. However, there is a lack of spatial information on vegetation sensitive to climate change. This research used a multi-temporal Sentinel-2 image to perform land cover classification of the Ny-Ålesund in Arctic Svalbard. In the pre-processing step, 10 bands and 6 vegetation spectral index were generated from multi-temporal Sentinel-2 images. In image-classification step is consisted of extracting the vegetation area through 8-class land cover classification and performing the vegetation species classification. The image classification algorithm used Random Forest to evaluate the accuracy and calculate feature importance through Out-Of-Bag(OOB). To identify the advantages of multi- temporary Sentinel-2 for vegetation classification, the overall accuracy was compared according to the number of images stacked and vegetation spectral index. Overall accuracy was 77% when using single-time Sentinel-2 images, but improved to 81% when using multi-time Sentinel-2 images. In addition, the overall accuracy improved to about 83% in learning when the vegetation index was used additionally. The most important spectral variables to distinguish between vegetation classes are located in the Red, Green, and short wave infrared-1(SWIR1). This research can be used as a basic study that optimizes input characteristics in performing the classification of vegetation in the polar regions.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.107-113
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• 2017

Background: As the habitat changes in Korea due to climate change, the emergence of disease-mediated vectors is increasing rapidly. Thus for the surveillance of mosquito- and chigger mite-borne disease, their seasonal prevalence and species composition were investigated at seven locations in Daegu, Gunwi and Sangju. Methods: Mosquitoes were collected twice every month from five collection sites using a black light and BG sentinel traps in Daegu and Gunwi from April through November. Chigger mites were investigated twice per month from wild rodents caught with Sherman live traps in Gunwi and Sangju from April through May and September through November. Results: A total of 2,361 female mosquitoes were collected. Cowshed (626 individuals, Trap index (TI) 44.7) and Kyungpook National University campus (846 individuals, TI 60.4) in Daegu had the highest number of mosquitoes in the black light and BG sentinel trap, respectively. The mosquitoes were collected more by BG sentinel trap than the black light trap. Nine mosquito species were trapped, and the Culex pipiens complex was the most commonly mosquito (1,397 individuals, 59.2%), followed by Anopheles sinensis (554 individuals, 23.5%). Anopheles sinensis (531 individuals, 51.9%) and Culex pipiens complex (1,142 individuals, 85.4%) were the most mosquitoes from black light and BG sentinel trap, respectively. In terms of seasonal prevalence, the highest abundance was in July, with 824 individuals collected. In chigger mites, eighty-one wild rodents of five species that are hosts of chigger mites were collected; among them, 53 and 25 individuals of Apodemus agrarius and Crocidura suaveolens, respectively were trapped. Leptotrombidium pallidum was a dominant species, with 2,467 individuals collected (67.8%). Conclusions: The mosquito was the dominant species in Culex pipiens complex and the highest in July and August. Apodemus agrarius was most abundant in wild rats and Leptotrombidium pallidum was dominant in the collected chigger mites.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.6_1
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• pp.1545-1557
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• 2021

Crops show sensitive spectral characteristics according to their species and growth conditions and although frequent observation is required especially in summer, it is difficult to utilize optical satellite images due to the rainy season. To solve this problem, Constrained Cloud-Maximum Normalized difference vegetation index Composite (CC-MNC) algorithm was developed to generate periodic composite images with minimal cloud effect. In thisstudy, using this method, monthly Sentinel-2A/B Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) composite images were produced for paddies and high-latitude cabbage fields from 2019 to 2021. In August 2020, which received 200mm more precipitation than other periods, the effect of clouds, was also significant in MODIS NDVI 16-day composite product. Except for this period, the CC-MNC method was able to reduce the cloud ratio of 45.4% of the original daily image to 14.9%. In the case of rice paddy, there was no significant difference between Sentinel-2A/B and MODIS NDVI values. In addition, it was possible to monitor the rice growth cycle well even with a revisit cycle 5 days. In the case of high-latitude cabbage fields, Sentinel-2A/B showed the short growth cycle of cabbage well, but MODIS showed limitations in spatial resolution. In addition, the CC-MNC method showed that cloud pixels were used for compositing at the harvest time, suggesting that the View Zenith Angle (VZA) threshold needsto be adjusted according to the domestic region.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.177-183
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• 2018

This study examined the seasonal, regional distribution of mosquito vectors related with disease vectors in the Jeju. From March to November, sample were collected from 11 points in four environmentally different sites in Jeju Island. Samples were collected twice a month using a black-light trap and a BG sentinel trap. Overall, five genera and seven species types of 6,042 female mosquitos were collected. Among the collected mosquitos, 4,159 (68.8%) and 1,348 (24.4%) were Culex pipiens and Aedes albopictus, respectively, making them the dominant species. Additionally, collection using the black light trap produced 72.8 entities per trap in Jungang-dong service center in the center of the city, which was the highest value, while the lowest amount of 1.4 per trap was recovered from the airport. When the BG sentinel trap was used, the largest recovery was observed in the port, where there were 71.7 entities per trap, while the lowest amount of 28.3 entities per trap was recovered at Gealmae Eco Park. The overall number of mosquitoes collected started to increase from May, and reached the largest value of 1,156 (19.1%) in August. Trapped mosquitoes are created 364 pools of up to 50 grains per pool, by season, by environmental, and by species. When the pools were used, no flaviviral infection was observed upon real time RT-PCR.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.277-284
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• 2006

The genetic toxicity of environmental pollutants, namely, nonylphenol (NP), bisphenol A (BPA) and chloropyriphos (CP) was investigated in aquatic sentinel species, freshwater crustacean, Daphnia magna, and larva of aquatic midge, Chironomus tentans, using Comet assay. Physiological effect of such pollutants was also investigated by studying the specimens' rates of reproduction, growth and survival. Acute toxicity results showed that, as expected, Daphnia was more sensitive than Chironomus to chemical exposure. The order of acute toxicity was CP > NP > BPA in D. magna and NP > CP > BPA in C. tentans. BPA may exert a genotoxic effect on D. magna and C. tentans, given that DNA strand breaks increased in both species exposed to this compound, whereas NP- and CP-induced DNA damage occurred only in C. tentans. In vivo genotoxic data obtained in aquatic sentinel species could provide valuable information for freshwater quality monitoring. The experiments with NP-exposed D. magna showed that the pollutant has long-term effects on reproduction, whereas no short-term effect on DNA integrity was found, being an example of a false-negative result from the biomarkers perspective. This result could be interpreted that other mechanism than genetic alteration might be involved in NP-induced reproduction failure in D. magna. False-positive results from the genotoxic biomarker obtained in BPA-exposed D. magna and in NP-exposed C. tentans make it difficult to use DNA integrity as an early warning biomarker. However, as the mere presence of genotoxic compounds, which are potentially carcinogenic, is of high concern to human and ecosystem health, it could also be important to rapidly and effectively detect genotoxic compounds in the aquatic system in ways that do not necessarily accompany a higher level of alteration. Considering the potential of D. magna and C. tentans as bioindicator species, and the importance of genotoxic biomarkers in ecotoxicity monitoring, DNA damage in these species could provide useful information for environmental risk assessment.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.9
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• pp.735-741
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• 2022

Global warming affects forests and their ecology. Diversity in the forest is a buffer that reduces the damage due to global warming. Mixed forests are ecologically more valuable as versatile habitats and are effective in preventing landslides. In Korea, most forests were created by simple afforestation with trees of evergreen species. Typically, evergreen trees are shallow-rooted, and deciduous trees are deep-rooted. Mixed forest tree roots grip the soil effectively, which reduces the occurrence of landslides. Therefore, improving the distribution of tree types is essential to reduce damage due to global warming. For this improvement, the investigation of tree types of the forest is needed. However, determining the tree type distribution of forests that are spread over wide areas is labor-intensive and time-consuming. This study suggests effective methods for determining the distribution of tree types in a forest that is spread across a relatively wide area. Using normalized difference vegetation index and RGB images from unmanned aerial vehicles, each evergreen and deciduous tree, and grassland area can be distinguished. The distinguished image determines the distribution of tree type. This method is effective compared to directly determining the tree type distribution in the forest by the use of manpower. The data from these methods could be applied to plan a mixed forest or to prepare for future damage due to global warming.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.541-546
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to evaluate ecosystem health effect in the physiological levels, based on ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) and total oxyradical scavenging capacity (TOSC) assays using sentinel fish species. We collected fish samples of Zacco platypus in May 2008 from 3 sampling sites including upstream, midstream, and downstream of the Gap Stream. EROD activity was averaged 4.54 in the downstream, 2.7 fold higher than upstream and indicated that stream condition was degraded along with longitudinal gradient from up to downstream. Downstream, especially was significantly increased (p < 0.01) so that indicated various pollutants including nutrient enrichment and toxicant exposure from the point sources, wastewater treatment plant and industrial complex may impact to the stream condition. In the mean time, TOSC assays showed higher in the midstream than other sites, but the values were not significant, compared to the previous report on oxidative stress. Overall results indicated that our approaches applying two biomarkers can be effectively used for diagnosis of the physiological levels in an integrative stream health assessments and can be applied as useful pre-warning techniques as a biochemical alarm system of organic pollutions.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.94-98
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• 2016

Calamus andamanicus Kurz is one of the commercially important solitary rattans endemic to Andaman and Nicobar islands. The habitat suitability modeling program, MaxEnt, was used to predict the potential ecological niches of this species, based on bioclimatic variables. The study revealed high potential distribution of C. andamanicus across both Andaman and Nicobar islands. Of the 33 spatially unique points, 21 points were recorded from South and North Andamans and 12 from Great Nicobar Islands. The islands like Little Andaman, North Sentinel, Little Nicobar, Tllangchong, Teressa were also predicted positive even though this rattan is not recorded from these islands. Mean diurnal range, higher precipitation in the wettest month of the year, annual precipitation and precipitation in the driest month are the main predictors of this species distribution.