• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.110 no.3
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• pp.419-430
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• 2021

This study investigated spatiotemporal trends of sediment-related disasters in North Korea from 1960 to 2019 and post-disaster recovery cases based on a literature review and satellite images. Results showed that occurrence status of sediment-related disasters was initially externally reported in 1995 (during the Kim Jongil era); their main triggering factor was heavy summer rainfall. Furthermore, forest degradation rate was positively correlated with population density (R² = 0.4347, p = 0.02) and occurrence number of sediment-related disasters was relatively high on the west coast region, where both variables showed high values. This indicates that human activity was a major cause of forest degradation and thus, significantly affected sediment-related disasters in mountain regions. Finally, sediment- related disasters due to shallow landslides, debris flow, and slow-moving landslides were observed in undisturbed forest regions and human-impacted forest regions, including terraced fields, opencast mines, forest roads, and post-wildfire areas, via satellite image analysis. These disaster-hit areas remained mostly abandoned without any recovery works, whereas hillside erosion control work (e.g., treeplanting with terracing) or torrent erosion control work (e.g., check dam, debris flow guide bank) were implemented in certain areas. These findings can provide reference information to expand inter-Korean exchange and cooperation in forest rehabilitation and erosion control works of North Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.41-49
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• 2003

Rainfall-induced landslides in a weathered granite soil slope usually happen on shallow slip surfaces above the groundwater table. The pore-water pressure of soil above the groundwater table is usually negative. This negative pore-water pressure (or matric suction) has been found to make a large contribution to the slope stability. Therefore, the variation of in-situ matric suction profiles with time elapse in a soil slope should be understood. In this study, a field measurement program was carried out from June to August, 2001 in order to monitor in-situ matric suctions and volumetric water contents in a weathered granite soil slope. Finite-element transient seepage analyses are also conducted using SEEP/W. The influence of climatic conditions on the variation of in-situ matric suctions could be found to decrease rapidly with the change of depth. It could be found that decrement of matric suction induced by precipitation is affected not only by the amount and duration of rainfalls but also by the initial matric suction just prior to rainstorms. The soil-water characteristic from the field monitoring tends toward the wetting path of SWCC obtained from the laboratory test.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.313-321
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• 2012

Korea has been continuously affected by landslides, as 70% of the land is covered by mountains and most of annual rainfall concentrates between June and September. Recently, abrupt climate change affects the increase of landslide occurrence. Gangwon region is especially suffered by landslide damages, because the most of the part is mountainous, steep, and having shallow soil. In this study, a landslide risk assessment model was developed by applying logistic regression to the various data of Duksan-ri, Inje-eup, Inje-gun, Gangwon-do, which has suffered massive landslide triggered by heavy rain in July 2006. The information collected from field investigation and aerial photos right after the landslide of study area were stored in GIS DB for analysis. Slope gradient entered in two ways-as categorical variable and as linear variable. Error matrix for each case was made, and developed model showed the classification accuracy of 81.4% and 81.9%, respectively.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.57-66
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• 2012

Gangwon-do has been suffering extensive landslide dam age, because its geography consists mainly of mountains. Analyzing the related factors is crucial for landslide prediction. We digitized the landslide and non-landslide spots on an aerial photo obtained right after a disaster in Inje, Gangwon-do. Three landslide factors-topographic, forest type, and soil factors-w ere statistically analyzed through GIS overlap analysis between topographic map, forest type map, and soil map. The analysis showed that landslides occurred mainly between the inclination of $20^{\circ}$ and $35^{\circ}$, and needleleaf tree area is more vulnerable to a landslide. About soil properties, an area with shallow effective soil depth and parent material of acidic rock has a greater chance of landslide.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.81-102
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• 1992

Landslides on hillside slopes with shallow soil cover over a sloping bedrock are frequently caused by increases in porewater pressures following of heavy rainfall and it is one of the most important factors of assessing the risk of landslide to predict the groundwater level fluctuations in hillslopes. This paper presents the comparative study of three unsaturated flow models developed by Sloan et al., Reddi, L.N., and Thomas, H.A., Jr., respectively, which are used to predict the increase of groundwater levels in hillside slopes. The parametric study for each of models is also presented. The Kinematic Storage Model(KSM) developed by Sloan et at. is utilized to predict the saturated groundwater flow. They are applied to the two sites in Korea so as to examine the possibility of use in the groundwater flow model. The results show that two unsaturated models developed by Sloan et al. and Reddi, L. N. are largely affected by the uncertain parameters like saturated permeability and saturated water content : the abed model has the potential of use in unsaturated flow model with the optimal estimates of model parameters utilizing available optimization techniques. And it is also found that the KSM must be modified to account for the time delay effect in the saturated zone. The results of this paper are able to be utilized in developing the predictive model of groan dwater level fluctuations in a hillslope.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.51-59
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• 2014

Shallow landslides and debris flows are a common form of soil slope instability in South Korea. These events may be generally initiated as a result of intense rainfall or lengthening rainfall duration because of the effects of climate change. This paper presents the evaluation of rainfall-induced natural soil slope stability and reinforced soil slope instability under vertical load (railway or highway load) throughout South Korea based on quantitative analysis obtained from 58 sites rainfall observatories for 38 years. The slope stability was performed for infinite and geogrid-reinforced soil slopes by taking an average of maximum rainfall every ten years from 1973 to 2010. Seepage analysis is carried out on unsaturated soil slope using the maximum rainfall at each site, and then the factor of safety was calculated by coupled analysis using saturated and unsaturated strength parameters. The contour map of South Korea shows four stages in 10-year-time for the degree of landslide hazard. The safety factor map based on long term observational data will help prevent rainfall-induced soil slope instability for appropriate design of geotechnical structures regarding disaster protection.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.665-671
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• 2007

In this study, the soil characteristics and the landslide probability are investigated in East Island of Dok-do. The distribution and depth of soil layer were investigated and the soil samples were taken from the soil layer in East Island. As the results of field investigation, the soil layer was partly distributed in specific location and the soil depth was ranged from 1cm to 50cm. Also, the soil depth was mainly ranged about 10cm in the large part of soil layer. The soils were classed as the weathered residual soils and involved many organic contents such as rotten roots and leaves. The average of water contents is 23.2%, and the average of liquid limits is 42.2%. Also, the soils is non-plastic condition. Also, the soils were mainly classed as the poor graded sand including loam contents. Meanwhile, the landslide probability was investigated through a survey of the soil layer distribution in East Island. The soil depth was very shallow in the large part of the soil layer, and the distribution area of soil layer was small. Therefore, it may predict that the landslide probability is very low due to the dissatisfaction of landslide occurrence condition.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.131-146
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• 2014

Multi-beam echosounder data and grain size analysis data of surface sediment were acquired and analyzed in order to investigate the shelf-to-slope morphology, geological character, and their geological controlling factors in the southwestern margin of the Ulleung Basin. According to the morphological character, the continental shelf can be divided into two parts: (1) shallow (~100 m) and steep ($0.5^{\circ}$) inner shelf, (2) deep (100-300 m) and gentle ($0.2^{\circ}$) outer shelf. The continental slope is featured with eight distinct topographic depressions of various spatial dimension (~121 $km^2$ in area) and head wall gradient (${\sim}24.3^{\circ}$). They are developed adjacent to each other and presumably formed by submarine landslides which have recurred under the strong influences of earthquakes and eustatic sea-level change. The inner continental shelf and the continental slope are dominated by fine-grained sediment, whereas the outer continental shelf is dominated by coarse-grained sediment. The surface sediment distribution seems dominantly influenced by eustatic sea-level change. The outer continental shelf is mostly covered by coarse relict sediment deposited during lowstand sea-level, while the inner shelf is covered with recent sediment during highstand sea-level. The surface of the continental slope is covered with fine-grained sediments which were supplied by hemipelagic advection process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1-8
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• 2018

Extreme climate phenomena are occurring around the world caused by global climate change. The heavy rains exceeds the previous record of highest rainfall. In particular, as flash floods generate heavy rainfall on the mountains over a relatively a short period of time, the likelihood of landslides increases. Gangwon region is especially suffered by landslide damages, because the most of the part is mountainous, steep, and having shallow soil. Therefore, in this study, is to predict the risk of disasters by applying topographic classification techniques and landslide risk prediction techniques to mountain watersheds. Classify the hazardous area by calculating the topographic position index (TPI) as a topographic classification technique. The SINMAP method, one of the earth rock predictors, was used to predict possible areas of a landslide. Using the SINMAP method, we predicted the area where the mountainous disaster can occur. As a result, the topographic classification technique classified more than 63% of the total watershed into open slope and upper slope. In the SINMAP analysis, about 58% of the total watershed was analyzed as a hazard area. Due to recent developments, measures to reduce mountain disasters are urgently needed. Stability measures should be established for hazard zone.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.5-15
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• 2013

In this paper, the unsaturated slope stability analysis considering suction stress (Lu and Godt, 2008) was introduced and the results applied for a certain sand slope were analyzed. The unsaturated slope stability analysis considering suction stress can analyze both conditions of steady infiltration and no infiltration, and it can estimate the safety factor of slope as a function of soil depth. Also, the influence of weathering phenomenon at a certain depth from the ground surface can be considered. The stability analysis considering suction stress was applied to the unsaturated infinite slope composed of sand with the relative density of 60%. The suction stress under no infiltration condition was affected by ground water table until a certain influencing depth. However, the suction stress under steady infiltration condition was affected by seepage throughout the soils. Especially, the maximum suction stress was displayed around ground surface. The factor of safety in the infinite slope under no infiltration condition rapidly increased and decreased within the influence zone of ground water table. As a result of slope stability analysis, the factor of safety is less than 1 at the depth of 2.4 m below the ground surface. It means that the probability of slope failure is too high within the range of depths. The factor of safety under steady infiltration condition is greater than that under no infiltration condition due to the change of suction stress induced by seepage. As the steady infiltration rate of precipitation was getting closer to the saturated hydraulic conductivity, the factor of safety decreased. In case of the steady infiltration rate of precipitation with $-1.8{\times}10^{-3}cm/s$, the factor of safety is less than 1 at the depths between 0.2 m and 3 m below the ground surface. It means that the probability of slope failure is too high within the range of depths, and type of slope failure is likely to be shallow landslides.