Impact of Deforestation on Agro-Environmental Variables in Cropland, North Korea

Chul-Hee Lim, Yuyoung Choi, Moonil Kim, Seong Woo Jeon and Woo-Kyun Lee
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Chul-Hee Lim: Department of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea
Yuyoung Choi: Department of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea
Moonil Kim: Department of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea
Seong Woo Jeon: Department of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea
Woo-Kyun Lee: Department of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02481, Korea

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-19

Abstract: Deforestation in North Korea is becoming the epitome of the environmental change occurring in the Korean Peninsula. This study estimates the agro-environmental variables of North Korea’s croplands and analyzes the impact of deforestation using the GEPIC (GIS-based EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate)) model and time-series land cover maps. To identify the changes in agricultural quality under deforestation, wind erosion, water erosion, organic carbon loss, and runoff were selected as the agro-environmental variables having an impact on cropland stability and productivity. Land cover maps spanning the past three decades showed that 75% of the forests were converted to croplands and that 69% of all converted croplands were originally forests, confirming the significant correlation between deforestation and cropland expansion in North Korea. Despite limitations in the verification data, we conducted qualitative and quantitative validation of the estimated variables and confirmed that our results were reasonable. Over the past 30 years, agro-environmental variables showed no clear time-series changes resulting from climate change, but changes due to spatial differences were seen. Negative changes in organic carbon loss, water erosion, and runoff were observed, regardless of the crop type. On newly-converted agricultural lands, runoff is 1.5 times higher and water-driven erosion and soil organic loss are more than twice as high compared to older croplands. The results showed that the agro-environment affected by deforestation had an impact on cropland stability and productivity.

Keywords: deforestation; agro-environmental variables in cropland; cropland expansion; GEPIC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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