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To reduce human exposure to particulate matter (PM), governments have enacted various preventive measures, to which a warning system is central. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to assess the effectiveness of mobile-based warning systems on respiratory health outcomes, examining two types of P M 2.5 (particles less than 2.5 μ m in diameter) alerts via text messaging systems: Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) and Air Quality Information Text (AIT) as employed in South Korea from January 2015 to October 2019. We used a generalized additive model to control the non-linear relationship between the P M 2.5 level and the number of hospital visits and admissions for four respiratory sicknesses—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respiratory tract infection, asthma, and pneumonia—while deciphering how such visits and admissions are reduced by the warning systems. Our results found that both systems reduced the number of new patients with the four sicknesses at a 5% statistical significance level. Of the two, WEA was found to be more effective than AIT. The former reduced the number of new patients by 16.4%, while the latter did so by 2.8%. WEA is for everyone with a cell phone connection. By sending simple and direct alerts to a broader range of people, WEA would help people to reduce the chance of short-term exposure to PM in general. The findings provide evidence with policy implications regarding air pollution adaptation.

The original version of the article unfortunately contained an error in Acknowledgements section. Below is the corrected version.

This study analyzes the effect of green characteristics on sales of unsold housing stock, using a multilevel growth model, in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea from 2012 to 2018. The green characteristics we estimated are external factors such as the proximity to urban parks and mountain trails located outside the housing complex and internal factors such as whether the area of communal open space within the complex exceeds a certain percentage. The results suggest that potential home-buyers are interested in green space inside rather than outside a housing complex in a suburban setting. Housing complexes with large enough communal open spaces had a 0.094 higher unsold unit ratio than complexes with small communal open spaces, but the surplus decreased more rapidly; the ratio declines by 0.028 per time unit. On the other hand, the results show no statistically significant effects of the distance to external green areas. This might be due to that public urban parks might not be an attraction to residents when forests and/or agricultural fields are in close proximity. The findings of this research will be utilized by construction companies and public institutions holding unsold units in improving their sales performance, not only in South Korea but also in other Asian regions showing a similar housing development pattern.

This study aims to examine the impact of planting strategies on improving thermal comfort in relation to the existing buildings within real high-rise residential complexes. Using numerical simulation via ENVI-met, we compare six planting scenarios characterized by two locational schemes—open-space planting and building-vicinity planting—and three tree quantities. The results highlight the importance of planting greater numbers of trees, and also of their locations, to moderate the thermal environment. The findings of the study demonstrated that increasing the number of trees in the open space by threefold of the advisory guidelines led to a significant reduction in the average air temperature by 0.87 °C, mean radiant temperature (MRT) by 11.00 °C, physiological equivalent temperature (PET) by 4.50 °C, and wind speed by 0.30 m/s. Planting the minimum number of trees under building-vicinity reduced air temperature by 0.07 °C, MRT by 2.48 °C, and PET by 0.92 °C, while showing a slight increase in wind speed of approximately 0.01 m/s. To achieve improvements in both thermal condition and air flow, we suggest planting rows of trees parallel to the prevailing wind direction in the ventilation corridors at some distance from buildings, to minimize overlap of shade from trees and from buildings. The findings of this study will provide useful guidelines for effective planting design in dense residential areas.

As climate change is ongoing, many studies have recently focused on adaptation to climate change from a spatial perspective. However little is known about how changing the spatial composition of landuse could improve climate change resilience. Consideration of climate change impacts when spatially allocating landuse could be a useful and fundamental long term adaptation strategy, particularly for regional planning. Here, we identify climate adaptation scenarios based on existing extents of three landuse classes using multi-objective genetic algorithms for a 9982 km2 region with 3.5 million inhabitants in South Korea. We selected five objectives for adaptation based on predicted climate change impacts and regional economic conditions: minimization of disaster damage and existing landuse conversion, maximization of rice yield, protection of high species richness areas, and economic value. We generated 17 Pareto landuse scenarios by six weighted combinations of the adaptation objectives. Most scenarios, although varying in magnitude, showed better performance than the current spatial landuse composition for all adaptation objectives, suggesting that some alteration of current landuse patterns could increase overall climate resilience. Given the flexible structure of the optimization model, we expect that regional stakeholders could efficiently generate other scenarios by adjusting model parameters (weighting combinations) or replacing input data (impact maps), and selecting a scenario depending on preference or a number of problem-related factors.

This study investigates the impact of neighborhood-built environments on obesity in interrelationship with socioeconomic status (SES)—controlling for dietary patterns and physical activities of residents—using structural equation modeling (SEM). A total of 577 samples who are between 19 and 64 years old and reside in Seoul are extracted from Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHNES), 2015. Neighborhood environments are represented as the two latent constructs—walkability and leisure amenities—composited with indicators such as density of intersections, density of mixed-use area, and the area of open spaces and are aggregated by jurisdictional unit in Seoul. We found that greater walkability in a neighborhood explained a lower body mass index (BMI) among residents, whereas more urban leisure amenities in a neighborhood explained a higher BMI. The finding suggests that a walking-friendly environment is more effective than active recreational amenities in inducing people to engage in daily physical activities to the level that reduces obesity rate. SES exerted a negative impact on BMI of a greater magnitude than the impact of either of the environmental living conditions, reinforcing the importance of general wealth and education level in leading to a healthy lifestyle. Our research contributes to growing evidence of a relationship between obesity and the built environment in the context of Asian countries where the prevalence of obesity is becoming a serious issue and requires immediate attention.

In this study, we investigate how far away and for how long past flooding affected single-family housing values in Gyeonggi, South Korea. In order to empirically explore the geographic and temporal extent of the effects, we adopt two analytical methods: random-intercept multilevel modeling and Mahalanobis-metric matching modeling. The analytical results suggest that the geographic extent of the discount effect of a flooding disaster is within 300 m from an inundated area. Market values of housing located 0–100, 100–200, and 200–300 m from inundated areas were lower by 11.0%, 7.4%, and 6.3%, respectively, than counterparts in the control group. The effect lasted only for 12 months after the disaster and then disappeared. During the first month, 1–3 months, and 3–6 months after a flood, housing units in the disaster-influenced area (within 300 m of the inundated area) were worth, on average, 57.6%, 49.2%, and 45.9% less than control units, respectively. Also, within the following 6 months, the discount effects were reduced to 33.2%. On the other hand, the results showed no statistically significant effects on market values more than 12 months after the disaster. By providing insights into how people perceive and respond to natural hazards, this research provides practical lessons for establishing sustainable disaster management and urban resilience strategies.

The grant number in the acknowledgement was incorrect [...]

This paper empirically tests the extent to which economic restructuring and gentrification affect viability and vulnerability businesses, with specific focus on arts and cultural industries in West Chelsea from 2000 through 2012. Based on the theoretical framework, gentrification stage model and adopting discrete-time survival analysis, we separately compare the risks of opening and closing between businesses established before/early stage of revitalisation (early-arrivers) and those established in the later stage (late-arrivers) within West Chelsea, versus their counterparts in the remainder of the study area in New York. We find that West Chelsea has been an advantageous location overall for late-arrivers in surviving in their market, while the early-arrived gallery and individual artists' enterprises have faced a higher risk of their operations closing. On the other hand, a higher proportion of new gallery and arts and cultural industries remain attracted to West Chelsea after 2000, suggesting that firms in those industries may be benefiting from the agglomeration effects and localisation economies associated with colocation. The higher opening probability of lodging venues (e.g. hotels) and other amenities signals an overall transformation of the neighbourhood and influx of new uses (and visitors) observed during this time frame.

In recent years, the deterioration of air quality due to high levels of particulate matter (PM: especially PM 10 and PM 2.5) has become a transboundary environmental problem in countries of the East Asia Pacific region. People tend to change their behavior in response to bad air quality, and those changes generate a wide range of socioeconomic implications. Despite their significance, however, the effects of PM on human behavior, especially behaviors involving outdoor activities, have not been sufficiently examined. This study employed panel analyses to empirically investigate differences in the preferences for recreational spaces with changes in the PM 2.5 level in Seoul, South Korea, from March 1 to June 30, 2017. We found a statistically significant relationship between the PM 2.5 level and the number of visitors to particular types of study sites in the daytime on weekdays and all days of the weekends. In both time groups, the number of visitors in open spaces decreased, while those in commercial spaces increased with heightened PM 2.5 level. But the numbers of visitors to indoor sports facilities showed no significant changes with the level of PM 2.5. We also found differing levels of pedestrian volume change according to sub-categories of open and commercial spaces. As an early empirical study of the impact of PM on human behavior, this work will help evaluate environmental policies and make possible safer community development planning.