Basic Study on Damaged Area Types and Improvement Idea of the National Park

Abstract

This study is conducted to determine the damage, distinguish the types and identify the restoration by that type for 13 Korea national parks out of 21. There are 21 Korea national parks are in Korea covering 6.67% of the country or 6,656 km 2 (3,902 km 2 on land and 2,754 km 2 in the sea) currently since the area around Jirisan (440 km 2 ) was designated as the first Korea national parks in 1967. With the cancellation of entrance admission on Korea national parks since 2007, annual visitors to the Korea national parks have grown from 37 millions in 2008 to 46 millions by 2013 and continue to grow due to numerous leisure activities, alpine activities and social changes. As such, Korea national parks are natural resource with high value to be conserved and are attracting significant attention as recreational spaces for people at the same time. On the other hand, there have been issues of soil erosions or disturbed vegetation due to increased number of visitor to the national parks.Korea national parks area damage to its type and damage characteristics to analyse the 13 Korea national parks out of 21 on July 2012 March, Korea national parks over the subjects of the National Park from damaged area status Survey analysis by the Korea National Park Service.As a result, 203 million units in the 16 Korea national parks damaged land of the reform package during ecological trail (including non-regular hiking trails) 153 (77.66%), damaged valleys 20(9.14%) independent damaged area, 13 disconnected ecological axis(7.61%), closed trail(2.03%) (3.55%), and line type damage(like a non-regular hiking trails) appears to be a high ratio.Korea national parks damaged land of the results identified, by contrast ratio and the annual number of visitors Bukhansan national park(49.26%), Gyeongju national park(23.65%) damaged land rates, such as Seorasan national park(4.93%), Songnisan national park (4.43 %), Gyeryongsan national park(3.45%), and the annual number of visitors be similar result.The National Park Service has been reporting on damages and restorations but damages and their types have not been established yet. Damages have been generally studied and categorized on hiking trails due caused by heavy traffic on them but the reports were limited on hiking trails only. Since damage to the Korea national parks are not limited on the hiking trails, it is necessary to determine damages in various aspects. Thus, in this study, damage types, spatial characteristics, causes and restorations are analyzed based on the survey results of damages to national parks in order to provide a basis for the efficient management and operation of the Korea national parks.