• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.298-304
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• 2019

In this paper, the analytical method to derive wind fragility for urban street tree in Korea was shown. Monte Carlo Simulation method was used to determine the probability of failure for urban street tree. This probability result was used to determine wind fragility parameters for four types of tree based on the study of street tree species in urban area in Daegu, Korea. Wind fragility for street tree was presented in terms of median capacity and standard deviation of the natural logarithm of the capacity. Results showed that the dominant factor affecting the probability of failure of tree under wind load was their diameter. Moreover, amongst the four types of tree chosen, the tree with height 7m and diameter 35cm had the lowest probability of failure under wind loading, whereas the tree with height 8m and diameter 30cm could resist the least wind loading. The median failure wind speed for urban street tree with height 7m were 43.8m/s and 50.6m/s for diameter 30cm and 35cm, respectively. Also, for tree with height 8m, their median failure wind speeds were 38.7m/s and 45.4m/s for tree with diameter 30cm and 35cm, respectively.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.219-227
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• 2021

Background and objective: Urban street trees play an important role in carbon reduction in cities where greenspace is scarce. There are ongoing studies on carbon reduction by street trees. However, information on the carbon reduction capacity of street trees based on field surveys is still limited. This study aimed to quantify carbon uptake and storage by urban street trees and suggest a method to improve planting of trees in order to increase their carbon reduction capacity. Methods: The cities selected were Sejong, Chungju, and Jeonju among cities without research on carbon reduction, considering the regional distribution in Korea. In the cities, 155 sample sites were selected using systematic sampling to conduct a field survey on street environments and planting structures. The surveyed data included tree species, diameter at breast height (DBH), diameter at root collar (DRC), height, crown width, and vertical structures. The carbon uptake and storage per tree were calculated using the quantification models developed for the urban trees of each species. Results: The average carbon uptake and storage of street trees were approximately 7.2 ± 0.6 kg/tree/yr and 87.1 ± 10.2 kg/tree, respectively. The key factors determining carbon uptake and storage were tree size, vertical structure, the composition of tree species, and growth conditions. The annual total carbon uptake and storage were approximately 1,135.8 tons and 22,737.8 tons, respectively. The total carbon uptake was about the same amount as carbon emitted by 2,272 vehicles a year. Conclusion: This study has significance in providing the basic unit to quantify carbon uptake and storage of street trees based on field surveys. To improve the carbon reduction capacity of street trees, it is necessary to consider planning strategies such as securing and extending available grounds and spaces for high-density street trees with a multi-layered structure.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.55-71
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to propose an evaluation method to assess green environments of streetscapes to improve urban street green spaces in Jeonju City. Through a rapid assessment of urban street green spaces, we suggest an objective basis for expanding street green space as well as for adopting sustainable maintenance and improvement measures. We choose 12 sections of streetscapes (roads and sidewalks) to investigate existing street conditions which have more than four lanes and function as major road axes. Six large roads and six medium roads of Jeonju City center area are investigated as pilot assessment study sites. Site inventory checklists consist of environmental characteristics of streetscape, street tree status, and planting condition evaluation. Environmental characteristics of streetscapes are composed of physical and neighborhood factors. For instance, items for physical factors are types and width of road/sidewalks, paving materials, tree protection materials, and green strip. And surrounding landuse is a neighborhood factor. Assessment items for street tree status are street plant names (tree/shrubs/ground cover), size, and planting intervals. Planting condition evaluation items are tree shape, damage, canopy density, and planting types with existence of adjacent green space. Evaluation results are classified into three levels such as A(maintain or repair), B(greening enhancement), and C(structural improvement). In case of grade A, streetscapes have enough sidewalk width for maintaining green strip and a multi-layered planting(in large road only) with fairly good growing conditions of street trees. For grade B and C, streetscapes have a moderate level of sidewalk width with a single street tree planting. In addition, street tree growing conditions are appeared poor so that green enhancement or maintenance measures are needed. For median, only grade B and C are found as its planting growing foundations are very limited in space. As a result, acquiring enough sidewalk space is essential to enhance ecological quality of urban street green. Especially, it is necessary to have green strip with reasonable widths for plant growing conditions in sidewalks. In addition, we need to consider native species with multi-layer plant compositions while designing street green.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.33 no.1 s.108
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• pp.71-80
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• 2005

In order to search for ecologically indicative characteristics on the street tree plots in Daegu area, plant communities and their floras were investigated. A total of 105 plots were collected and numerically analyzed by PCoA(Principal Coordinates Analysis). These plots were classified into 4 types containing 139 species, 97 genera, 42 families(including 37 exotic species): urban-dry type, urban-wet type, rural-dry type, rural-wet type. Habitat connectivity to the surrounding vegetation cover, extent and frequency of human impacts, and soil moisture recognizably were the main factors to allow the plots differentiation. Indicative species composition to these four types was generated as Eleusine indica-Eragrostis multicaulis-Oxalis corniculata to the urban-wet, Digitaria ciliaris-Eleusine indica-Eragrostis multicaulis to the urban-dry, Setaria viri-dis-Artemisia-Lactuca indica var. laciniata to the rural-wet, and Setaria viridis-Digitaria ciliaris-Erigeron canadensis to the rural-dry, respectively. Mean species number per plot for rural type was 2.5 times higher than for urban types. Street tree species representative to the rural-wet type is Zelkova serrata, which is a key species of potential natural vegetation in the alluvial land of Daegu area. Street tree plots were characterized by Eleusine indica showing the highest r-NCD value and also C4-assimilation grass plants. Views on the efficacy of the rural-wet type and the reinforcement of vegetation connectivity and soil moisture in rehabilitating street tree plots, are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.15-29
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• 2021

Urban green spaces offer a variety of benefits to living things and humans. However, existing green spaces have been reduced and fragmented due to urbanization, and there is a limit to creating new large green spaces in densely developed cities. Street trees have fewer restrictions on land use, which can be a measure to secure green areas in cities. In Korea, excessive pruning is being done on some street trees for reasons such as blocking of building signboards, contact with electric wires, and restrictions on sidewalk widths. Therefore, it is necessary to quantitatively understand the relationship between the benefits provided by street trees and their structures to come up with an efficient and systematic planning and management plan for urban street trees. In this study, we quantitatively analyzed the relationship between the thermal comfort improvement by the shades of street trees and the vertical structure, planting environment, and types of street trees. To calculate the thermal comfort felt by human body, we calculated UTCI (Universal Thermal Climate Index) of each street tree. For the vertical structure of street trees, we used Terrestrial LiDAR and the point clouds of street tree's crown was sliced vertically at 1m intervals. We conducted a multiple regression analysis on the thermal comfort improvement using the variables we obtained from fields. As a result, in the case of a street tree's vertical structure, the lager the volume of tree's crown located 3-4m (β=0.298, p<.05) and 6-7m (β=0.568, p<.001) above clear length, the better the cooling effect. In addition, the thermal comfort improvement was assessed to decrease as the DBH increased (β=-0.435, p<.001). In general, the crown diameter and DBH are positively correlated, with a cooling effect occurring as crown diameter increases. In this study, the opposite result was obtained due to the small number of trees measured, so additional research is needed by increasing the number of tree samples. In the case of the planting environment, the effect of improving thermal comfort was higher in the shaded area of trees planted to the south (β=-0.541, p<.001). Since unsystematic management of street trees can deteriorate the function of them, quantitative evaluations of the vertical structure of street trees are required, which can provide specific measures for planning and management of urban street trees with thermal comfort effect.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 2019

The street trees increase the liveability of cities by reducing stormwater runoff, improving air quality, storing carbon, providing shade, and ameliorating the urban heat-island effect. In this study, the health status of street trees in Suwon was evaluated, and the factors affecting the growth of the trees were also derived. In order to evaluate the growth and health of street trees, field survey was carried out on a total of 125 trees in 25 sections of the Deogyeong-daero where is through the city. During the field survey, the following items were examined: Street trees health status (i.e. species, height, DBH (diameter at breast height), planting types, vigor, etc.), soil factors (i.e. soil temperature, humidity, pH, hardness, etc.), and environmental factors (i.e. landuse, road width, etc.). As the results of field survey, the main species of the street trees was Zelkova serrata, which was healthy in most of the sections. The factors such as planting types, soil temperatures, tree root cover, road extension, distance from the road were derived to affect the growth and health of street trees, and the differences were significant. The results of this study were derived the following conclusions for vigorous street trees: First, it is important to install and maintain the protection facilities like tree root cover for the growth of trees. Second, it is necessary to discuss how to plant multiple trees in narrow spaces like a street green space. Third, it is important to provide appropriate soil conditions continuously for growth of threes. Finally, it should be utilized as a mitigation measure of urban heat island effects.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.29-43
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• 2020

Thermal environment of city is getting worse due to severe urban heat island caused by climate change and urbanization. The cooling effect of street tree is regarded as a effective way to ameliorate the urban heat environment. The effect is largely made up of shadow formation and transpiration. This study aims to identify how the transpiration affects the discomfort index by analyzing comprehensive impact of the transpiration on the air temperature and relative humidity. The changes in the amount of transpiration, air temperature, and relative humidity were estimated for Seogyo-dong area which has a lot of floating population in Seoul, at 2 p.m. in dry day in July and August. On average, the transpiration of the street tree decreased the temperature 0.3℃ and increased the relative humidity 2.6% in an hour. As a result of these changes in temperature and humidity, the discomfort index rose mostly(0.036 on average). It was always get rise especially on the day when the discomfort index was above 80(0.05 on average). However, compared with the significant change in temperature and humidity, the variation of the discomfort index itself was very slight(up to 0.107). Therefore, the effect of transpiration by the street trees might not be effective in the planning to improve the thermal environment(especially on the day when the discomfort index is high). It is necessary to select the species of trees and planting location considering the cooling effect of shade formation synthetically.

• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.685-692
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• 2015

In this study, the effects of trees on flow and scalar dispersion in an urban street canyon were investigated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. For this, we implemented the drag terms of trees to the CFD model, and compared the CFD-simulated results to the wind-tunnel results. For comparison, we considered the same building configuration as the wind-tunnel experiment. The trees were located at the center of street canyon with the aspect ratio (defined as the ratio of the street width to the building height) of 1. First, the flow characteristics were analyzed in the tree-free and high-density tree cases and the results showed that the CFD model reproduced well the flow pattern of the wind-tunnel experiment and reflected the drag effect of trees in the street canyon. Then, the dispersion characteristics of scalar pollutants were investigated for the tree-free, low-density tree and medium-density tree cases. In the tree-free case, the nondimensionalized concentration distribution simulated by the CFD model was quite similar to that in the wind-tunnel experiment in magnitude and pattern. The correlation coefficients between the measured and simulated concentrations are more than 0.9 in all the cases. As the tree density increased, nondimensionalized concentration increased (decreased) near the wall of the upwind (downwind) building, which resulted from the decrease in wind speed case by the drag effect of trees. However, the CFD model underestimated (overestimated) the concentration near the wall of upwind (downwind) building.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.47-59
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• 2023

Due to climate change and urbanization, abnormally high temperatures and heat waves are expected to increase in urban and deteriorate thermal comfort. Planting of street trees and changing the albedo of urban surfaces are the strategies for mitigating the thermal environment of urban, and both of these strategies affect the exposure and blocking of radiative fluxes to pedestrians. After measuring the shortwave and longwave radiation according to the ground surface with different albedo and the presence of street trees using the CNR4 net radiometer, this study analyzed the relationship between this two strategies in terms of thermal environment mitigation by calculating the MRT(Mean Radiant Temperature) of each environment. As a result of comparing the difference between the downward shortwave radiation measured under the right tree and at the control, the shortwave radiation blocking effect of the tree increased as the downward shortwave radiation increased. During daytime hours (from 11 am to 3 pm), the MRT difference caused by the albedo difference(The albedo of the surfaces are 0.479 and 0.131, respectively.) on surfaces with no tree is approximately 3.58℃. When tree is present, the MRT difference caused by the albedo difference is approximately 0.49℃. In addition, in the case of the light-colored ground surface with high albedo, the surface temperature was low and the range of temperature change was lower than the surrounding surface with low albedo. This result shows that the urban thermal environment can be midigate through the planting of street trees, and that the ground surface with high albedo can be considered for short pedestrians. These results can be utilized in planning street and open space in urban by choosing surfaces with high albedo along with the shading effect of vegetation, considering the use by various users.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.6_2
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• pp.1151-1157
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• 2017

Street Trees is an important object for urban environment improvement. Especially the height of the trees needs to be precisely measured as a factor that greatly influences the removal of air pollutants in the Urban Street Canyons. In this study, we extracted the height of the tree based on the stereo image using the precisely adjusted UAV Images of the target area. The adjustment of UAV image was applied photogrammetric SfM (Structure from motion) based on the collinear condition. We measured the height of the trees on the Street Canyon using stereoscopic vision on stereo plotting system. We also acquired the height of the building adjacent to the street trees and the average height of the road surface was calculated for accurate measurement of the height of each object. Through the visual analysis with the plotting operation system, it was possible to measure height of the tree and to calculate the relative height difference value with building quickly. This means that the height of buildings and trees can be calculated without making a 3D point cloud of UAV and it has the advantage of being able to utilize non-experts. In the future, further studies for semiautomatic/automation of this technique should be performed. The development and research of these technologies is expected to help to understand the current status of environmental policies and roadside trees in urban areas.