Efficient Establishment of Protected Areas in Pyoungchang County, Kangwon Province to Support Spatial Decision Making

Abstract

As the second-largest 1st degree of ecological zone in Kangwon Province, Pyeongchang County is expected to play an important role in expanding the protected areas of the Republic of Korea. However, Pyoungchang County is expected to experience an increase in demand for development due to the 2018 Winter Olympics. Problems related to various stakeholders and limited budget will arise regarding the issue of expanding the protected areas. In this study, in order to effectively control these problems, we designed expansion plans for the 1st degree ecological zoning map areas and the observed data of threatened species I and 11 in Pyoungchang County by using the MARXAN Software. As for the methods, we first set the planning units(PUs) for the spatial analysis. The PUs include boundary length, land cost, land status, etc. Then, we made the input data by controlling the conservation features, BLM(Boundary Length Modifier) and iteration numbers, There are two measures for the establishment of the protected areas, one of which only concerns with the ecological priority, and the other with combining the land cost on forest. The one illustrated shows that the larger patches that include the conservation feature was selected as a candidate of the protected areas. The other one presented shows that inexpensive land cost areas were selected. As this study produces visual results and enables an efficient application of various values in selecting protected areas, we believe that it will be useful to various stakeholders in spatial decision-making process.