경관생태학에 의한 야생동·식물 서식공간 설정방안 연구

Abstract

With a variety of topographic features and climatic conditions, Korea has extremely diverse habitat types such as coastal wetland, estuary, island, paddy field, cropland and woodland, which provide nesting and feeding sites for migratory birds and carnivorous predators (i.e., Siberian tiger). These habitats are now deteriorated and fragmented due to extensive socio-economic development and road construction; therefore, many endemic species are faced with extinction in Korea by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. The objective of this study was to explore the process of developing wildlife habitat model applied in Korea to quantify and protect suitable habitat for the Korean fauna and flora. Four major steps toward building a wildlife habitat model were used in this study: (1) overview and designation process of protected area to preserve wildlife habitat, (2) review of management strategy for protecting wildlife species and its habitat, (3) introduction of habitat suitability index (HSI) model developed by the United States and now applied worldwide, and (4) case study to evaluate the preliminary habitat model. All the procedures described above were integrated to develop GIS-based habitat models for Korean fauna and flora, especially considering spatially-explicit habitat variables derived from National Geographic Information System (NGIS) and Environmental Information Systems (EIS). Biotic and abiotic features should be incorporated into habitat model. Only a few biotic factors and most abiotic factors were available to use in developing the habitat model. While the Korean government have conducted 3 extensive surveys to acquire biotic characteristics, only the ’National Survey of Natural Environment’ was used to construct nationwide GIS dataset for wildlife species in Korea. Abiotic characteristics such as rainfall, temperature, topography, soil and others have strong impacts on habitat preference of each species. The spatial pattern of abiotic features was distributed with NGIS and EIS; therefore, the GIS-based habitat model of this study took most of abiotic factors into consideration. Given the paucity of biotic database as well as insufficient knowledge on habitat requirements of wildlife species, preliminary procedures for habitat model development were prepared. Habitat models for bullfrog (invasive alien species) and mallards (wintering visitor) were developed as case study to examine whether the preliminary habitat model and development procedures are realistic in current situation. In data-poor situations, expert opinion and literature review should be used to identify habitat variable and habitat preference. If more time is available, field survey and experimental observation could also be conducted to derive the HSI model. In conclusion, developing procedures of GIS-based habitat model for the Korean fauna and flora were suggested as follows: (1) organizing 3-5 panelist of experts related to landscape ecology, conservation biology, environmental planning, plant biology, animal behavior and wildlife management; (2) acquisition of ecological knowledge with literature review, delphi, field survey and others by panelist; (3) definition of spatial/temporal scales, which means study area and species’ life cycles interested; (4) selection of available habitat variables based on life requisites of wildlife species; (5) development of suitability index curve; (6) evaluation of the habitat model against a real-world measure; (7) production of habitat suitability map of individual species; finally (8) modification and improvement of the habitat model by adding/removing habitat variables and changing suitability index curves.