• Title/Summary/Keyword: urban environment

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The Temporal and Spatial Distribution of Volatile Organic Compounds(VOCs) in the Urban Residential Atmosphere of Seoul, Korea

  • Anthwal, Ashish;Park, Chan-Goo;Jung, Kweon;Kim, Min-Young;Kim, Ki-Hyun
    • Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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    • v.4 no.1
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    • pp.42-54
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    • 2010
  • Automobile emissions have caused a major hydrocarbon pollution problem in the ambient air of many cities around the world. This study was conducted to measure the pollution status of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in some urban residential areas in Seoul, Korea. A total of 20 VOCs (11 aromatic and 9 chlorinated species) were identified at 4 urban residential sites in Seoul, Korea from February 2009 to July 2009. Comparison of total VOC (TVOC) concentration data indicated the dominance of the aromatic species with the maximum (72.2 ppbC) at Jong Ro (JR) and the minimum at Yang Jae (33.4 ppbC). The peak concentration of TVOC occurred during spring at all sites with an exception at Gang Seo (GS), where it was recorded during winter. The distribution of individual VOCs at the study sites was characterized by high toluene concentration. A strong correlation of benzene was also observed with other VOCs and criteria pollutants at all sites (except YJ). The overall results of this study suggest that vehicular emissions have greatly contributed to the increase in VOC pollution at all the study sites.

Community Structure of Benthic Macroinvertebrate Affected by Lake Water and Sewage Effluent at Urban Stream in Gwangju, Korea

  • Yoon, Sang-Hoon;Jung, Suk-Kyeong;Seo, Gwang-Yeob;Cho, Young-Gwan
    • Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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    • v.50 no.3
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    • pp.325-336
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    • 2017
  • The ecosystem in the Gwangju Stream has taken a wide range of disturbance such as the discharging water of sewage treatment plant, the lake water and the river water from different water system over the past decade. This study was figured out some significant influence factors by analyzing the relationship between biotic and abiotic factors in the urban stream. Abiotic components included 15 water quality variables which were measured in five sampling sites along the stream from October 2014 to July 2015, whereas the benthic macroinvertebrates found in those sites were used to estimate various biotic indices representing the ecological status of the community. The results of correlation analyses indicated that abiotic factors by human activities affected on the inhabitation of benthic macroinvertebrates more than biotic factors. The results of cluster analyses and ANOVA tests also showed that biotic and abiotic characteristics were clearly different in season. The main influence factors of cluster analysis by sites were $NH_3-N$, EPT(I) and DO. It was considered that more various statistical analyses would be necessary to find some different relationships and influence factors between biotic and abiotic variables in the urban stream.

A Study on the Ecologic Design for Urban Collective Dewelling (생태학적 개념을 적용한 도심형 공동주택 공간디자인 연구)

  • Kyonne, Jin-Hyun
    • Journal of the Korean housing association
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.83-92
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    • 2007
  • The past concept of constructing houses was focused on how to overcome the limitation of consuming natural resources such as energy and materials, which increased the official cost and the environmental pollution. On the other hand, the echo-friendly concept has considered the harmony between human being and nature more critically and has applied the characteristics of natural environment into a unique dwelling design by developing constructs and materials adjusted to the particular climate, making them into a unit of impacting positively the complicated system. The current environmental issue is how a dwelling adapts into a given climate in which the design is applied by ecology without damaging the natural environment. In another word, the main issue in the twenty first century will be how we meet the human needs to dwellings applied by the residential environment. Therefore, we have to provide a hospitable place for residents' mental and physical health through "Green Design", emerging as the critical design of urban collective dwellings. Based on these conceptions, the purpose of this study is to suggest the way of designing the urban collective dwelling applied by ecology, proffering wealthy life style to residents with the preservation of natural environment as applying an ecological concept into the design of collective dwellings that represent a contemporary housing type for urban residents.

A Study on the Environmental Assessment Criteria for Designation of Conservation Zones in Urban Area (환경성 평가시 도시보전용도지역 확보기준에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Sang-Moon;Jeon, Young-Ok
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.14 no.6
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    • pp.403-413
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    • 2005
  • The environmental conservation-targeted zoning in urban planning process has been functioned as securing a ecological core in urban green spaces management. Hence, the designation of conservation zones in land use planning is considered as a key task to achieve the sustainability of urban planning. The recently introduced pre-environmental review system for the proposed urban plan, by which the conservative measures for urban ecosystem and landscape are suggested in aspect of environmental impact mitigation, has played an active role in enhancing the environmental performance degraded by wide range of development pressure. This study is aimed at drawing out of objective criteria for designation of environmental conservation zones, which can be applied to urban planning establishment and also to environmental assessment process. To achieve this goal, the study adopted the following methods; pre-study review, analysis of existing official opinion statements released by the Ministry of Environment, contents analysis of related laws, and experts' panel discussions on the finally arranged criteria. The results of this research can be summarized as follows: First, the total criteria of 48 are drown out with categorizing into environment-ecological and socio-cultural sectosr. Second, the environment-ecological part is composed of 33 criteria such as vegetation, animal, geomorphology, watershed, environmental land suitability, and etc. Here, the Degree of Ecological Function, Degree of Environmental Land Suitability, and Vegetation Map are mainly utilized. Third, the 15 socio-cultural criteria relating to the history, social ecology and landscape have such components as forest around relics, Seo-won(school), castle, tomb, landmark, skyline, natural landscape, and etc. Forth, these individual criteria can be applied to designation of each conservation zones among total of 11 conservation areas(or districts).

Determination of Pollutant Unit Loads from Various Transportation Landuses (교통관련 포장지역 비점오염원에서의 오염물질 유출원단위 산정)

  • Lee, So-Young;Lee, Eunju;Maniquiz, Marla C.;Kim, Lee-Hyung
    • Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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    • v.24 no.5
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    • pp.543-549
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    • 2008
  • Human activities and land-use practices are intensely widening the urban areas. High impervious surface areas cover much of urban landscapes and are the primary pollutant sources which can lead to water quality and habitat degradation in its watershed. As the urban areas expand, transportation land-use such as parking lots, roads, service areas, toll-gates in highways and bridges also increase. These land-uses are significant in urban pollution due to high imperviousness rate and vehicular activities. To regulate the environmental impacts and to improve the water quality of rivers and lakes, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) in Korea developed the Total Pollution Load Management System (TPLMS) program. The main objective is to lead the watershed for a low impact development. On a local scale, some urban land surfaces can be emitting more pollution than others. Consequently, in urban areas, the unit loads are commonly employed to estimate total pollutant loadings emitted from various land-uses including residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, open lands such as parks and golf courses, and other developed land like parking areas as a result of development. In this research, unit pollutant loads derived specifically from transportation land-uses (i.e. branched out from urban areas) will be provided. Monitoring was conducted over 56 storm events at nine monitoring locations during three years. Results for the unit pollutant loads of transportation land-use are determined to be $399.5kg/km^2-day$ for TSS, $12.3kg/km^2-day$ for TN and $2.46kg/km^2-day$ for TP. The values are higher than those of urban areas in Korean MOE and US highways. These results can be used by MOE to separate the pollutant unit load of transportation landuses from urban areas.

The Analysis of Pollination Potential Environment for Apis mellifera in Seoul Using Maxent Modeling Approach (Maxent 모델을 이용한 양봉꿀벌의 서울시 수분 잠재환경 분석)

  • Kim, Yoon-Ho;Cho, Yong-Hyeon;Bae, Yang-Seop;Kim, Da-Yoon
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.85-96
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    • 2020
  • The honeybee serves for most entomophilous flowers. They are a core species for maintaining the ecological system. Though the urban ecological system needs bees' mediation of pollination as well, we have little understanding on how the honeybee reacts to the physical environments of an urban city. This study is a basic research to enhance the potential environment for pollination in an urban area and aims to review the urban environmental variables which are highly linked to the pollination mediations by the honeybee. The study composed a Maxent model by adopting nine urban environmental variables and the locations of the Apis mellifera's appearances around 52 spots in Seoul. The variables reflect the ecology of the Apis mellifera. Of the urban environmental variables used for the model composition, six variables were found as not having meaningful correlations with the Apis mellifera's appearances and finally, building coverage, actual vegetation and land cover were selected as the appearance variables of the Apis mellifera. The AUC, the reliability indicator of the final model was 0.791 (sd=0.077). And the importance data of the variables used for the model were 55.6%, 27.9%, and 16.5% for building coverage, actual vegetation and land cover, respectively. The result of the study showed that the building coverage has the highest correlation with the appearance of the honeybee. And, as per the actual vegetation, the artificially tree planted area as well as the cultivated field and meadow in an urban area were functioning as the most important environmental conditions for the honeybee to be inhabitable. The study is expected to be utilized as the base material for the urban planning and park green area planning to enhance the potential environment for pollination in an urban area.

Selection and Application of Evaluation Factors for Urban Regeneration Project (도시재생사업의 평가요인 선정 및 적용)

  • Jang, Cheol-Kyu
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.47 no.6
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    • pp.53-66
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    • 2019
  • The purpose of this study was to suggest indicator-based selection and improvement plans for evaluating urban regeneration projects. First, we selected the indicators by conducting expert surveys and analysis of the responses received. Additionally, using the selected indicators, we analyzed the residents' opinions in Wongogae Village, where urban regeneration projects were in progress. Based on these, we suggested a plan to improve Wongogae Village. According to the study, we classified the urban regeneration evaluation indicators into 'Physical environment', 'Social environment' and 'Economic environment' according to their characteristics. We selected urban regeneration evaluation factors through the first expert survey and MCB analysis. As a result, we selected six factors for the 'Physical environment' category: 'Traffic and pedestrian environment', 'Residential (housing) environment', 'Safety and security environment', 'Greenspace', 'Landscape improvement' and 'Public space', In the 'Social environment' category, four factors were chosen: 'Resident participation', 'Community activation', 'Role of the local government and support centers' and 'Resident education' while for the 'Economic environment' category three factors were selected: 'Local economic revitalization', 'Creating an economy-based environment', 'Job creation'. Next, we conducted a second expert survey and carried out an AHP analysis using the selected evaluation factors to derive the overall weight for each. Among the evaluation factors for urban regeneration, the 'Residential (housing) environment' has the highest weighted value of 0.108, followed by 'Local economic revitalization' and 'Resident participation'. Lastly, the analysis of the residents' opinions of Wongogae Village using the urban regeneration evaluation factors, Parking environment', 'Maintenance of old houses and living environment', 'Environment for founding town and social enterprises', 'Improve commercial and business environment', 'Maintain and activate existing business' and 'Vitalizing small regional economies such as domestic handicrafts and side-job' had high overall importance, but low satisfaction, which means that it is necessary to improve the focus. Therefore, in order to improve the urban regeneration project in villages, it is necessary to improve the parking environment by expanding public parking lots, eliminate close houses, and idle lands, or open a school playground in the village for the residents. In addition, it is essential to encourage economic activities, such as fostering village enterprises and social enterprises in connection with cooperatives and allow for the selling of the products through resident activities, such as neighboring markets.

Assessing the Habitat Potential of Eurasian Otter (Lutra lutra) in Cheonggye Stream Utilizing the Habitat Suitability Index (서식지 적합성 지수를 이용한 청계천 수달의 서식지 평가)

  • In-Yoo Kim;Kwang-Hun Choi;Dong-Wook W. Ko
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.37 no.2
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    • pp.140-150
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    • 2023
  • The Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) is an apex predator of the riparian ecosystem. It is a keystone and an indicator species; consequently, its presence suggests a sustainable water environment. Otter is a keystone species as a predator at the top of the food web in the aquatic environment and an indicator species representing the health of the aquatic environment. Although Eurasian otters disappeared from the Han River urban water system because of anthropogenic activities like habitat destruction, poaching, and environmental pollution in the 1980s, the species were sighted in the Cheonggye Stream, Jungrang Stream, and Seongnae Stream, which are urban sections of the Han River, in 2016 and 2021. Therefore, it is pertinent to assess the habitat potential in the area for conservation and management measures to ensure its permanent presence. However, existing studies on otter habitats focused on natural rivers and reservoirs, and there is a limit to applying them to habitats artificially confined habitats in narrow spaces such as tributaries in urban areas of the Han River. This study selected the Cheonggye Stream, an artificially restored urban stream, to evaluate its potential as a habitat for Eurasian otters in urban water environments using the habitat suitability index (HSI). The HSI was calculated with selected environment attributes, such as the cover, food, and threat, that best describe the L. lutra habitat. According to the results, the confluence area of Seongbuk Stream and Cheonggye Stream and the confluence area of Cheonggye Stream and Jungnang Stream were suitable otter habitats, requiring appropriate conservation efforts. The HSI model suggests a valuable method to assess the habitat quality of Eurasian otters in urban water environments. The study is crucial as it can help rehabilitate the species' populations by identifying and managing potential Eurasian otter habitats in highly urbanized areas of the Han River basin and its tributaries.

A Geographical Study on Water Environmental Changes in the Urban Rivers in Tokyo, Japan

  • Taniguchi, Tomomasa
    • Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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    • v.38 no.spc
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    • pp.54-57
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    • 2005
  • It is important to assess the change of water environment in the present and past. In this study, present-day water quality standards are applied to the expressions in literary works to reconstruct the historical water environment including the quality. As the result, the historical reconstruction of water quality has been made distribution of water quality from 1905 to 1935 for the Sumida River in Tokyo.