• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.229-245
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• 2018

This study aims to investigate the changes in the riparian vegetated area in the Naeseong stream, an unregulated river, in order to analyze the main factors leading to these changes. For this purpose, the land surface cover in the channel area of the Naeseong stream was classified into 9 categories using past aerial photographs collected between 1970 and 2016, which recorded the long-term changes of the Naeseong stream. The increase or decrease in the vegetated area was calculated for each category using a pair of before and after images. The changes in the vegetated area were divided into 6 periods: the unvegetated channel period (1970 - 1980), the first rapid increase (1980 - 1986), the period of decrease due to flood (1986 - 1988), the period of repetitive man-induced disturbance and vegetation increase (1988 - 2008), the period of gradual vegetation increase (2008 - 2013), and the period of second rapid increase (2013 - 2016). Multiple regression analysis was performed using independent variables representing hydrology, climate, and geomorphology. The major variables found to be involved in the changes in the vegetated area of the Naeseong stream were the discharge during June - July, channel width, and temperature during April - June. Among the three variables, discharge and temperature were respectively the main independent variables in the downstream and the upstream reaches as per a single variable model. Channel width was the variable that distinguished the upstream and downstream reaches of the stream. The implication of the long-term increase in the vegetated area in the Naeseong stream was discussed based on the result of this study.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.85-95
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• 2024

Background: In Korea, riparian zones and some floodplains have been converted into agricultural fields and urban areas. However, there are essential for maintaining biodiversity, as they are important ecological spaces. There are also very important spaces for humanity, as they perform various ecosystem services in a changing environment including climate change. Due to the importance of rivers, river restoration projects have been promoted for a long time, but their achievement has been insignificant. Development should be pursued by thoroughly evaluating the success of the restoration project. Ecological restoration is to accelerate succession, a process that a disturbed ecosystem recovers itself, with human assistance. Ecological restoration can be a test bed for testing ecological theories in the field. In this respect, ecological restoration should go beyond a 'simple landscaping exercise' and apply ecological models and theories in restoration practice. Results: The cross-section of the restored stream is far from natural rivers due to its steep slope and artificial material. The vegetation profiles of the restored streams did not reflect the flooding regime of the river. The species composition of the vegetation in the restored stream showed a significant difference from that of the reference stream, and was also different from that of an unrestored urban stream. Although species richness was high and the proportion of exotic species was low in the restored stream, the effect was offset by the high proportion of gardening and landscaping plants or obligate terrestrial plants. Conclusions: Based on both the morphological and ecological characteristics of the river, the restoration effect in the restored stream was evaluated to be very low. In order to solve the problems, a systematic adaptive management plan is urgently required. Furthermore, it is necessary to institutionalize the evaluation of restoration effects for the development of river restoration projects in the future.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.564-594
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• 2008

For this study, which was conducted in summer from $2006{\sim}2007$, 25 places of stream area in Korea, which were not affected by human, were selected by considering variable environmental factors. Plant surveys were performed in five qaudrats per each place of stream area(stream length=about 1km) on the basis of Braun-Blanquet(1964) and in four belt(length=20m) per each place of stream area by using belt-transect method in order to study the vegetation of the present-day potential natural state of water. In the results of the plant survey, the common plant communities in the mid-northern district(latitude$37^{\circ}37.9^{\circ}N$) were Quercus mongolica community and Fraxinus rhynchophylla community(with Quercus mongolica and Quercus aliena), and the common plant communities in the southern district(latitude$35^{\circ}35.9^{\circ}N$) were Quercus serrata community, Styrax japonica community and Quercus variabilis community. The common plant communities in the central district(latitude$36^{\circ}36.9^{\circ}N$) were Quercus serrata community, Fraxinus rhynchophylla community and Quercus aliena community, which have the middle characteristic between mid-northern and southern district. Also, in the results of correlation analysis between environmental factors and appearance of plant species in the survey places of stream area, Eco region showed the most significant correlation, but for the plan to restore flood plain, it is necessary to clarify the vegetation of potential natural stream by increasing the number of study cases considering variable environmental factors, in the future.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.359-369
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• 2015

Stream ecosystems are highly valued natural resources, however, stream environments are currently under threat in several respects. We evaluated vegetation and ecological characteristics according to different revetment types. The distribution of vegetation differed with revetment type, with a 42~45 taxa found in natural revetments, and 23~38 taxa in vertical revetments. Thus, natural revetments host more diverse vegetation than vertical revetments. We also found more plants belonging to the families Labiatae and Cyperaceae growing in natural revetments than in vertical revetments. We proposed that habitat space be apportioned to introduce annual plants as part of stream restoration projects. And, we identified 7 families and 18 taxa of naturalized plants, majority taxa were either biennial or perennial. Moreover, naturalized ratio was higher in vertical(14.3%) than natural(12.1%), we proposed a plan to promote and improve natural streams and revetments. Furthermore, we applied a waterfront evaluation method developed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the USDA-NRCS, which confirmed that stream health can be improved in most regions by controlling naturalized plants and ensuring shrub and tree growth. We adopted a new method to remove naturalized plants and establish natural revetments to ensure shrub and tree growth to aid in small-stream restoration and improvement. In future studies, we hope to develop methods for small-stream restoration projects in rural areas.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.23-33
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• 2019

Naeseong Stream is a sand-bed river that flows through the northern area of Gyeongbuk province. It is characterized by dynamic sandy bedforms developed in response to the seasonal hydrological fluctuation and by its unique riverine landscape called "white river." However, changes including construction of Yeongju Dam from 2010 and the extensive vegetation establishment around 2015 occurred along the Naeseong Stream. This paper aims to analyze climate, hydrology, and water quality as factors and to examine the possibility of channel changes accordingly. The second least precipitation during the last 60 years happened in 2015, which led to the lowest peak discharge in 50 years. The sediment characteristics of Naeseong Stream were not significantly different along the upstream and downstream reaches, but it was confirmed that annual minimum water level of the stream decreased continuously regardless of the dam construction. This suggests that intermittent drought and change in water quality are likely to provide favorable conditions for riparian vegetation establishment and the resulting physical changes have affected riverbed degradation. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct diversified monitoring in connection with river vegetation change in order to analyze the causes of river changes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.77-91
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to define the species composition of the soil seed banks at major wetlands in Nakdong river basin and central korea and to investigate how soil seed banks relate to aboveground vegetation and soil texture. In 2005, we sampled seed banks at Baksil reservoir, Jillal marsh, Deapyeng marsh, Hwapo marsh, Upo marsh and Junam reservoir in Nakdong river basin and Osan stream and Amsa-dong in Seoul. The soil seeds were estimated with the emergence method from April to October. Total numbers of species at the seed banks were 33 at Baksil, 18 at Daepyeong, 35 at Jillal, 56 at Upo, 32 at Hwapo, 47 at Osan stream, 54 at Amsa waterside, 31 at Amsa meadow. The species diversity in the soil seed banks of Upo marsh was the highest as 0.95. The community overlap index that compares aboveground with underground vegetation is high in the Upo marsh (0.34), Jilla marsh (0.36), and Osan stream (0.27). Soil texture affected distribution of 8 species, Lindernia procumbens, L. attenuata, Arenaria serpyllifolia, Juncus effusus, Persicaria thunbergii, Eragrostis multicaulis, Cyperus nipponicus, Scirpus fluviatilis. Considering the social and cultural values, soils at Amsa meadow, Hwapo marsh and Osan stream have worth to use for wetland restoration.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.333-333
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• 2017

Recently, long-lasting landscape of the Naesung Stream has been changed due to encroachment of vegetation. To analyze patterns and causes of these changes, Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has been carried out long-term monitoring research for the 56.8 km long study reach of the Naeseong Stream. Using the consecutive airborne LiDAR survey data obtained from 2012~2016, changes of channel bed forms such as bars could be detected. For the last four years of monitoring, mid-channel bars has been formed along the straight reaches and the existing bars showed vertical accretion caused by deposition on the vegetated surfaces.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.218-227
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• 2011

The objective approach for assessment of stream naturalness is an essential part of the stream restoration project. This study proposes the methodology for the assessment of stream naturalness considering physical, biological and chemical factors. Physical factors consists of riffle and pool, river bed material, bank protection, floodplain vegetation and levee materials; biological factors are benthic macroinvertebrate, KSI (Korean Saprobic Index), and IBI (Index of Biological Integrity) and chemical factors are pH, DO (dissolved oxygen), and TP (total phosphorus). This procedure is applied to the Mokgamcheon. As a result, the downstream of Mokgamcheon (zone I) needs the prompt improvement of stream naturalness, compared to the others (zone II and III). This evaluation technique will be an effective tool to quantify the stream naturalness and can be used to set the target of stream restoration project.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.34-41
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• 2012

The concept of vegetation freeboard equivalence (VFE) is presented from the comparison between the rise in stage with/without vegetation and the freeboard height under design discharge conditions. In South Korea, the freeboard height of large, medium and small rivers is defined as a function of river discharge. Two models are used for this analysis of flood stage with and without vegetation: the 1-D model HEC-RAS and the 2-D model RMA-2. Both models are applied to three river study sites of the Geum River in South Korea as representative sites for a large, a medium and a small river. The analysis shows that without vegetation, both models provide comparable results and the calculated results are in very good agreement with the design configuration. The vegetation effects on the medium river are less significant, and the freeboard is adequate to contain the rise in stage from the added floodplain vegetation in large rivers. The concept of vegetation freeboard equivalence is therefore useful for the analysis of flood river stages after the restoration of channels with increased floodplain vegetation.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.53-64
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• 2006

A study on the restoration process of a stream ecosystem and the water quality renovation technique by removing algae, vegetation and fish monitoring as evaluating the removal of the algae by dietetic characteristics of fishes were performed on Sangdong stream in the B city after stream restoration it to the artificial stream as the cases, restoring urban stream into close-to-nature stream are being increased domestically with the aim of ecological city. As a result, restoration and rehabilitation of the fundamental stream ecosystem was well maintained 4 years later the reclamation at the moment and total 93 diagnosis which were all vascular plant phylum including 44 families, 73 genuses, 79 species and 14 varieties in flora and vegetation community were observed. 3 families, 8 species and 354 populations in total among Fishes were found and Pseudorasbora Parva, Cyprinus Carpic and Carassius Auratus strongly resistant to water pollution were dominantly appeared in order of 50.5% of Pseudorasbora Parva 21.2% of Cyprinus Carpic, 20.9% of Carassius Auratus, 7.1% of Macropodus chinensis and 0.3% of Misqurnus anguillicaudatus according to relative richness index. It turned out to be that Cyprinus Carpic ingests algae over 90% and Carassius Auratus takes it over 30% according to the analysis about the alimentary object of the fishes as a consequences of algae's excrescent from characteristics of the tested experimental stream. It is reported that a Cyprinus Carpic, about 34 cm in length, ingested wet-weight 43.2g algae on the rough analysis toward the sample which makes us recognize how effective a macro community Cyprinus Carpic is for removing algae.As a consequence of this research, the effect of stream ecosystem characteristics and water quality purification could not be expected by aquatic plants and trees which were eliminated at experimental stream. From now on, a close-to-nature stream should be formed of ecological hydraulic and hydrologic engineered modeling from the beginning so that it can perform the water quality purifying function. It is determined that the structure of food chain will be abundantly influenced by the induction of oversized macro community like Cyprinus Carpic because a biomass of a consumer of higher order is increased. It is estimated that the removal algae by fishes is not effective despite in some cases of dietetic characteristics so much more studies should be executed in the future.