The enterprising evaluation for the Korean National Long-Term Ecological Research (KNLTER) Project for six years (Review)

Abstract

The Korean National Long-Term Ecological Research (KNLTER) project seeks to predict the effects on Korean ecosystems caused by stress derived from environmental changes from a national perspective. The objective of this article about the KNLTER program, continuously supported by the Ministry of Environment (MOE) since 2004, was to inspect the general plans and to evaluate the project for the KNLTER program objectively, and to make suggestions about the developmental direction of the project. As a result of evaluation on the research site, the numbers of research sites in 2010 correspond to 50% of those presented in the basic plan of the KNLTER project. As a result of evaluation on the research contents in the terrestrial ecosystem section of the KNLTER project, monitoring of climatic and atmospheric changes using eco-towers should be conducted over a long-term period. Additionally, the soil respiration part of the study needs to be expanded further in order to better understand soil systems. In the freshwater ecosystem section, we need to establish common standard investigation items, which can be used as indicators of the actual freshwater environment, considering that freshwater ecosystem management is closely related to human life. In the coastal ecosystem section, we should intensively analyze the correlation between the collected data accumulated thus far, as well as environmental changes including climate change, pollution, etc. For very sensible cases such as topographic changes due to rises in sea level, we should generate data applicable to prediction and confrontation for future changes through the continuous addition of variables and applications of a variety of simulation methods. In the animal ecology section, we should evaluate ecosystem changes based on animal phenology by selecting indicator animal species, which can be applied to each relevant ecosystem: namely, terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal ecosystems. As a result of synthetic evaluation conducted under the auspices of KNLTER, the stability of study areas is frequently implicated as the most common problem. If private lands are designated as study sites, it is very difficult to maintain them as study sites for a prolonged period. Therefore, it is necessary to designate national and public lands, such as national or provincial parks, as study sites. Efforts thus far conducted toward the construction of an appropriate database and modeling studies remain insufficient. After investigating the phenology of the specific species growing in all research sites, it is necessary to assess and report the overall changes in Korean ecosystems by applying that knowledge. The collection, analysis, and systematization of recent domestic and foreign research data related to natural ecosystem changes owing to environmental changes such as climate change and environmental pollution have been insufficient. Therefore, studies performed to obtain this information should be continuously pursued in the third stage.