Journal of the Korean Geographical Society ISSN:1225-6633(Print) 대한지리학회지

The Sahel region experiences significant rainfall variability driven by the West African Summer Monsoon (WASM) and the African Easterly Jet (AEJ). This study investigates the biogeophysical influence of vegetation dynamics on rainfall variability during the summer (6-9, JJAS) from 1982 to 2022, applying high-resolution satellite data and ERA5/ERA5-Land reanalysis. Statistical methods, including linear regression, detrended correlation, detrended composite difference analysis, and Granger causality analysis, have been utilized. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) exhibited a slightly increasing trend. NDVI also showed a positive correlation with total evapotranspiration, latent heat flux, and 2m specific humidity, while it had a negative correlation with sensible heat flux and 2m temperature. These vegetation-induced surface flux changes contributed to reduced vertical temperature and geopotential height, weakening and shifting the AEJ northward, strengthening the WASM, and thus increasing rainfall. This suggests a positive feedback loop where vegetation growth enhances rainfall. The findings provide key insights into climate change responses in the Sahel and inform sustainable land and water management strategies.

Cognitive distance, the subjective spatial perception that differs from physical distance, exerts a substantive influence on individuals' spatiotemporal behavior; nevertheless, large-scale empirical research on intercity cognitive distance has remained limited. To address this gap, the present study analyzed the spatial structure and determinants of intercity cognitive distance in South Korea, drawing on survey responses from 2,732 licensed adult drivers across 300 city pairs constructed from 25 major cities, with an average of approximately 180 responses per pair. Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) revealed that the cognitive spatial structure was distorted such that the north–south axis was compressed while the east–west axis was expanded, and that respondents tended to perceive cities in regional clusters rather than individually. Cross-Classified Multilevel Model (CCMM) analysis showed that, at the city-pair level, physical distance and high-speed rail (KTX) connectivity had significant effects on cognitive distance whereas direct expressway connection did not, while city-pair experience patterns (residence in one city, visit to one city, and residence in one and visit to the other) at the response level and annual driving distance at the individual level also emerged as significant determinants. By contrast, sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, driving experience, education, and income showed no significant effects. These findings provide a basis for using cognitive distance as a complementary evaluation indicator in regional transportation network assessment and in the delineation of administrative districts and daily activity zones.

This paper examines the geopolitics debate between Lim Duck-soon and Cha Yun in 1969. During the mid-Cold War period, South Korea was confronted with changes, most notably the consolidation of the Sino-Soviet split and the reorientation of US strategy in East Asia. Based on their contrasting understandings of the Korean Peninsula’s geographical location, Lim and Cha interpreted these changes in the global affairs and debated questions concerning the Korea’s survival and development. This paper regards their debate as the moment of the Korean geopolitical tradition that emerged in relation to broader currents of Western geopolitical traditions, analysing how the two scholars, under the historical conditions of the Cold War and the inter-Korean division, mobilised Western geopolitical concepts alongside geopolitical imaginaries of the peninsula to construct their own geopolitical thoughts. The paper argues that Korean geopolitical tradition should be understood as a process of knowledge production in which diverse intellectual resources were translated and articulated, rather than as a simple diffusion of Western geopolitics or an internalisation of colonial knowledge, but remains cautious that this process embodied a contraversy that a critical awareness of geopolitics’ imperial origins coexisted with a willingness to embrace it as indispensable knowledge under the realities of the Cold War and the inter-Korean division.

Air quality over the Korean Peninsula is significantly influenced by the advection of particulate matter (PM₁₀). During high-concentration episodes, up to 80% of the variability can be explained by advection alone. This study develops a model for the seasonal wind directions governing PM₁₀ advection that affect air quality over the Korean Peninsula and analyzes the associated pressure patterns. To this end, aerosol reanalysis data were used to develop a model for the effective wind directions and derive the corresponding geopotential height fields. PM₁₀ advection was the greatest in spring, followed by winter, fall, and summer. Notably, unlike other seasons, fall showed a distinct characteristic where decreasing soil moisture over the Manchuria region causes stronger northwesterly PM₁₀ advection. This suggests that when a west-high/east-low pressure pattern forms earlier than usual in fall, high-concentration PM₁₀ is likely to increase over the Korean Peninsula by the northwesterly flows. These results indicate the potential utility of the specific pressure patterns and wind directions to suppose the seasonal advection of high PM₁₀ in advance. The findings of this study are expected to contribute to a better understanding of the seasonal characteristics of high PM₁₀ episodes over the Korean Peninsula and the climatological conditions associated with their occurrences.

This study aimed to understand the climatic environment of recent extreme weather phenomena occurring in the Korean Peninsula through vorticity analysis. Vorticity, which is functionally the second spatial derivative of the stream function, is considered an effective indicator of local variations of pressure patterns. Using Ertel's Potential Vorticity (EPV) over a 30-year climatological period (1991–2020) and the newly devised Available Relative Vorticity (ARV) for practical interpretation, the climatic environment of the Korean Peninsula was examined. The spatial distribution of climatological EPV and its trends during this period revealed clear influences of topography and geography. In particular, analysis of the difference between ARV and the climatological relative vorticity, the distribution of ARV anomalies showed geographical correspondence with recent disaster-affected regions in the 2020s, with wildfire and drought regions aligning with anticyclonic vorticity anomaly areas and major flood regions aligning with cyclonic vorticity anomaly areas. This combined analysis of climatological values and their trends not only explain past events but also provides valuable insights into the types and locations of potential disaster phenomena that may occur in the near future.

Smart cities have emerged as important urban development strategies associated with technological innovation, sustainability, and urban competitiveness. However, opportunities remain to better understand how citizens evaluate and support smart city expansion. This study examines factors influencing citizens’ support for smart city expansion by focusing on demographic characteristics, awareness and perception variables, and broader smart city value dimensions. Using online survey data collected from 385 respondents in South Korea, this study employs exploratory factor analysis and hierarchical ordered logistic regression analyses. The exploratory factor analysis identified four latent value dimensions associated with smart city perceptions: Innovation & Economic Value, Quality of Life & Experience, Open Governance, and Social & Institutional Value. The results indicate that demographic characteristics alone provide limited explanatory power, whereas broader smart city value dimensions exert substantially stronger effects on support for smart city expansion. Among the explanatory variables, Innovation & Economic Value emerged as the strongest predictor, followed by Social & Institutional Value and Open Governance. Perceived utilization of smart cities also showed a significant positive effect on support. The findings suggest that citizens’ support for smart city expansion is shaped not only by expectations regarding technological innovation and economic growth, but also by perceptions related to stakeholder participation, collaborative governance, institutional improvement, social trust, and experiential public services. This study contributes to the smart city and geographic literature by examining citizens’ support for smart city expansion from broader social, governance-related, and spatial perspectives. The findings imply that successful smart city development requires not only technological advancement but also citizen-centered governance, institutional legitimacy, and socially meaningful urban experiences.

This study investigates the spatial patterns of technological knowledge creation activities by universities in South Korea. Using patent data involving university applicants, we examine university knowledge networks from two complementary perspectives, physical space and technological space. In the physical dimension, we calculate the Weighted Average Inventor Distance (WAID) for each university based on the geographical distance between universities and inventors. In the technological dimension, we measure the Weighted Average Relatedness (WAR) using the degree of relatedness among technological fields. The results indicate that university knowledge creation is primarily grounded in geographical proximity, while universities located outside the Seoul metropolitan area rely, to some extent on long-distance collaborations within metropolitan partners. In contrast, technological knowledge creation exhibits relatively limited variation across universities in terms of technological relatedness. Furthermore, among non-metropolitan universities, we identify a distinct group characterized by strong local collaboration and relatively weak connections to the metropolitan area, suggesting that university knowledge networks are heterogeneous even within non-metropolitan regions. These findings highlight that university-centered regional innovation policies should account for the diverse spatial and technological collaboration patters of universities, taking into consideration the specific regional and industrial contexts in which they operate.

The technosphere is a planetary-scale material-technological system comprising infrastructure, industrial and residential facilities, and the flows of energy, materials, and information organized through them. The Anthropocene is widely understood to have emerged through the expansion of the technosphere driven by Western ideas and practices associated with industrialization, capitalism, and colonialism. Yet understanding the Anthropocene solely as an outcome of Western expansion is insufficient. The period in which the Anthropocene became increasingly manifest coincided with the so-called “modernization” of non-Western societies, particularly those in East Asia. Rather than acting merely as passive recipients of Western technologies and ideas, East Asian states combined them with their own institutions and practices, thereby playing a distinctive role in shaping the Anthropocene. State-led infrastructure development and the active creation of markets, in particular, contributed significantly to its material manifestation. This study therefore argues for a reinterpretation of the Anthropocene that takes seriously the agency of East Asian states and illustrates this argument by tracing the histories of dam construction in Korea and Japan. Large dams, identified as one of the major indicators of the Great Acceleration, are both emblematic of modern geoengineering and prominent landscapes of the technosphere. Through a comparative examination of Korea and Japan, this study shows how a particular configuration of the Anthropocene emerged as longstanding East Asian practices of water management (治水) became entangled with historical conditions including imperialism, colonialism, war, the Cold War, and developmentalism. At the same time, the study moves beyond an exclusive focus on state agency in the making of the technosphere by examining how technospheric systems can exceed state intentions and elude control. In doing so, it highlights the need to reconsider the roles and responsibilities of the state in the Anthropocene.

The Mogok-ri site, located in the central part of the Jangdae Fault, is considered to have been reactivated during the Quaternary, displacing unconsolidated deposits. However, the numerical dating to understand the timing of most recent fault movement and the estimation of the seismic magnitude have not been performed. In this study, luminescence dating was carried out on the unconsolidated deposits exposed at the Mogok-ri site, and the moment magnitude was estimated based on the displacement measured from the outcrop. The luminescence dating results indicate that, considering the ages of the sediments cut by and overlying the fault, the timing of the most recent fault movement of the Mogok-ri site is constrained to be ca. 212~178ka. Assuming pure reverse dip-slip movement the maximum displacement of the Mogok-ri site is estimated to be approximately 0.8m. Applying this value to the empirical relationship yields an estimated moment magnitude of approximately M_w 6.5. The Jangdae Fault is located near densely populated areas and industrial facilities. The results of this study suggest that the Mogok-ri site, located in the central part of the Jangdae Fault, may have been associated with an earthquake of approximately M_w 6.5 during the Quaternary. Therefore, continued investigations of the Mogok-ri site are necessary from the perspective of seismic hazard assessment, including additional fault outcrop surveys, geomorphic offset analysis, and slip-rate estimation.

This study compares destination population-weighted (DPW) models that incorporate changing regional population distributions into transition probabilities for multiregional migration projection and proposes a new controlled-total destination population-weighted (CT-DPW) model. The Feeney, Plane, and Dion models update transition probabilities using destination populations generated in each projection round, but differ in their treatment of total transition probabilities and the strength of population-migration feedback. The CT-DPW model controls the total transition probability for each origin and reallocates that total across destinations according to changes in destination populations. It thus separates the modeling of “how much migration occurs” from “where migrants move.” A deterministic simulation based on a hypothetical three-region system compares a fixed transition probability model with four DPW models and examines long-term changes in regional populations, net migration, net migration rates, the migration effectiveness index, and total transition probabilities. The Plane model produces rapid population concentration through strong feedback, whereas the Dion model slows but does not prevent long-term concentration. The Feeney model yields a relatively stable distribution but does not explicitly constrain total transition probabilities. Under the simulation conditions, the CT-DPW model responds to changes in destination populations while limiting the endogenous amplification of total mobility and the divergence of migration indicators, thereby yielding a stable multiregional population distribution. By separating overall mobility from destination allocation, the CT-DPW model improves interpretability and facilitates scenario specification. It can also be extended into a hybrid framework in which future paths of origin-specific total transition probabilities are set and then allocated across destinations through recursive population weighting.

This study analyses the composite alluvial fans and river terraces of the Ryusai area, Ina Valley, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, from the perspective of geographical geomorphology, combining multilingual documentary cross-verification, DEM analysis, and two field surveys. Chronic irrigation shortage arose from three superimposed landform conditions: subsurface flow through coarse, permeable fan deposits; a relative height of several tens of metres between the fault-uplifted terrace surfaces and the Tenryu riverbed; and the limited size of steep headwater catchments in the Kiso Mountains. Outflow from Lake Suwa was therefore chosen as the source, since it alone satisfied supply stability, intake elevation, and minimal conflict with customary water rights. The 26 km Nishitenryu Main Irrigation Canal (1922-1928), with a gradient of 0.046%, followed the contour of the upper terrace margin and crossed tagiri gorges by tunnels, aqueducts, and inverted siphons. This contour-following route produced a comb-shaped supply system that determined the linear arrangement of the division works, while disputes throughout the newly reclaimed paddies prompted the repeated installation of cylindrical division works, which fix area-proportional shares in built form. The result is Japan's largest and only linearly clustered group of such works—a concentrated case of co-evolution between landform, hydraulic technology, and agricultural landscape.

This study analyzes the spatial structure of university patent-based technology transfer in Korea, distinguishing patent assignments from exclusive licenses of registered patents transferred from Korean universities to domestic private firms between 2001 and 2020. The results show that university patent-based technology transfer began to increase in the late 2000s and expanded rapidly after the mid-2010s, and that this growth was driven mainly by patent assignments. Spatially, Seoul and Daejeon emerged as major supply regions, while Seoul and Gyeonggi functioned as major demand regions. Interregional linkages were centered on transfers toward firm demand in the Seoul metropolitan area, complemented by intra-regional linkages between non-metropolitan regional cities and neighboring areas. Gravity model estimates show that distance and administrative boundaries were significantly associated with technology transfer flows even after controlling for supply and demand volumes by region, year, and technology field, and that flows from non-metropolitan universities to firms in the Seoul metropolitan area were significantly larger. These findings suggest that university patent-based technology transfer cannot be explained solely by localized spillovers around universities, but is formed within a structure that combines a Capital Region–centered spatial hierarchy with intra-regional linkages.