Young-Geun Song

In many metropolitan areas, the urban fringe is defined by highly sensitive habitats such as forests and wetlands. However, the explosive growth of urban areas has led to the formation of informal settlements in the urban fringe, subsequently threatening these sensitive habitats and exaggerating several social and environmental problems. We seek to improve the current understanding of informal settlements and their formation in the metropolitan fringe through a comprehensive spatiotemporal analy

Increasing development pressure on designated natural heritage areas poses a significant threat to biodiversity and ecosystems. Balancing intensive development and biodiversity conservation is crucial for achieving ecological sustainability. Ecological connectivity (EC) enhances regional ecological sustainability by promoting interactions between ecological sources and stabilizing ecosystem dynamics. Spatial conservation prioritization (SCP) is a useful approach for identifying areas requiring p

Abstract Field measurements of vertical canopy structure have been challenging for decades and still important for understanding forest ecosystems. We measured the vertical canopy structure and its seasonal changes in a temperate deciduous forest canopy in Gwangneung, Korea. Time‐series measurements of leaf area index (LAI) were collected in 2013 from a five story (4‐m vertical intervals) tower. We evaluated crown depth and species composition by height from a vegetation survey. The vertical dis

Measuring tree structure using three-dimensional (3D) mapping tools such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing is needed to provide well-managed and designed green spaces. The metrics used to estimate tree structure could be different depending on which LiDAR systems are used. This may lead to confusion and reduce confidence when evaluating tree structures and their derived products, such as plant area index (PAI). Therefore, studies that can determine similarities among measurem

Summary Jeju Island, designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site, continues to face the anthropogenic pressures of reckless development for regional tourism and economic revitalization purposes. Because land use/land cover (LULC) affects ecosystem services and human well-being, it is crucial to comprehensively identify the causes of changes in LULC based on long-term analyses. This study examined LULC changes on Jeju Island over 47 years from 1973 to 2019 and quantified changes in four ecosyst

Abstract. Three-dimensional distribution of plant area density (PAD) was retrieved using airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. The calculation of PAD requires the number of laser-pulses intercepted by plant materials and which are not intercepted by trees (i.e., passed laser-pulses) for the spatial unit. To estimate the passed laser-pulses at a voxel (1-m voxel in this study), we traced every laser-return by using its flight line information. The assumption was that every laser-pulse traveled on t

Understanding forest dynamics is important for assessing the health of urban forests, which experience various disturbances, both natural (e.g., treefall events) and artificial (e.g., making space for agricultural fields). Therefore, quantifying three-dimensional changes in canopies is a helpful way to manage and understand urban forests better. Multitemporal airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) datasets enable us to quantify the vertical and lateral growth of trees across a landscape sc