Industrial and technological development have contributed significantly to causing environmental crises, such as climate change and land degradation. To address these environmental challenges, nature-based solutions (NBS) have gained increased attention over conventional technical responses. This study derived conceptual linkages from NBS application to resilience promotion, and subsequently, to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). The study was conducted to reveal that NBS activities are an essential approach that determines the balance between human development and nature conservation. In this paper, we compare four case studies, one domestic reforestation project and three international afforestation projects, all of which had forest-related NBS experiences and were conducted by the Republic of Korea. All four projects were found to have an impact on environmental and socio-economic resilience. These impacts were qualitatively assessed through resilience indicator evaluations. Subsequently, the resilience indicators were matched with the targets of the SDGs. NBS initiatives designed to include various natural and social elements promoted the resilience of ecosystems and society and address a broader spectrum of SDGs. Further efforts to establish region-specific promotional models, identify resilience indicators, and collect scientific data are recommended for quantitatively assessing the NBS initiatives.

Faced with the prospect that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change will be far-reaching and long-term, the international community is showing interest in urban green space (UGS) and urban green infrastructure utilization as a solution. In this study, we investigated how citizens’ perceptions and use of UGS have changed during COVID-19. We also collected their ideas on how UGS can raise its usability. As a result, more people became to realize the importance of UGS. In particular, the urban environmental purification function from UGS was recognized as giving great benefits to respondents. On the other hand, the patterns of UGS use were mixed with decreasing UGS use to maintain social distancing or increasing UGS use to maintain health or substitute other restricted facilities. More than half of respondents had their UGS visit patterns impacted by COVID-19. In particular, the increase rate of UGS use was rather high in the group that seldom used UGS before COVID-19. In addition, they increased the use of UGS to replace other limited facilities, and thus tended to demand an increase in rest facilities. Based on these results, this paper suggested securing social support and sustainability for the policy by reflecting users’ demand in landscape planning related to the increase of UGS in the city. This study can contribute to improving the resilience of UGS and the sustainability of urban space planning.

The IPCC emphasizes the role of forests in the sequestration of greenhouse gases, a significant cause of climate change. Accordingly, it shows the importance of predicting changes in forests due to climate change, evaluating them to reduce vulnerability under adaptive capacity, and finding ways to find climate resilient development pathways. In this study, the KO-G-Dynamic model, a Korean growth model, was linked with the frameworks of AR5 and 6 to assess risk dynamics in the forest growth sector. At this time, the sensitivity is a variability due to the reduction in forest growth, the exposure is the forest as an object, the hazard is climate change, the adaptive capacity is forest management, and the vulnerability is a mechanism that sensitivity could not be adjusted according to adaptive capacity. The risk was assessed by ranking overall risks derived from the process of vulnerability generated by the interaction of the above factors. As a result, the current forests in Korea are age class imbalanced, and the effects of distribution are centered on fast-growing tree species. If climate change and overprotection continue, the vulnerable area expands as sensitivity increases, since the total growth reduces due to increasing over-matured forests. From the regional-based analysis, Gangwon-do and Gyeongsangnam-do mostly consist of the higher V age class, the ratio of ‘very high’ risk grade was high and the area of ‘high’ risk grade changed rapidly. However, after applying forest management scenarios of adaptive capacity such as harvesting, reforestation, and thinning based on Republic of Korea’s forest management policy, the ratio of ‘Low’ risk grades increased according to the reduction of vulnerability areas. Therefore, forest management can act as an important factor to reduce the risk of forest growth in response to climate change.

Forests play a crucial role in South Korea’s carbon neutrality goal and require sustainable management strategies to overcome age-class imbalances. The Generic Carbon Budget Model (GCBM) offers a spatially explicit approach to simulate carbon dynamics at a regional scale. In this study, we utilized the GCBM to analyze the carbon budget of forests in South Korea and produce spatiotemporal maps for distribution of the forest biomass. The growth parameters of five representative tree species (Pinus densiflora Siebold & Zucc., Larix kaempferi Carr., Pinus koraiensis Siebold & Zucc., Quercus mongolica Fisch. ex Ledeb., Quercus variabilis Blume), which are the main species in South Korea, were used to operate the model. In addition, spatial data for harvest and thinning management activities were used to analyze the effects of anthropogenic activities. In 2020, the aboveground and belowground biomass were 112.98 and 22.84 tC ha⁻¹, and the net primary productivity was 8.30 tC ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. These results were verified using comparison with statistics, a literature review, and MODIS NPP. In particular, broadleaf is higher than conifer forest in net primary production. The Canadian GCBM with Korean forest inventory data and yield curves successfully estimated the aboveground and belowground biomass of forests in South Korea. Our study demonstrates that these estimates can be mapped in detail, thereby supporting decision-makers and stakeholders in analyzing the carbon budget of the forests in South Korea and developing novel schemes that can serve regional and national aims related to forest management, wood utilization, and ecological preservation. Further studies are needed to improve the initialization of dead organic matter pools, given the large-scale afforestation efforts in recent decades that have established South Korea’s forests on predominantly non-forest sites.

Using the nexus approach is essential to achieve sustainable development goals. But inter-linkage research based on forest goals is insufficient. In this study, K-SDGs and some policies such as laws and plans related to forest sectors were reviewed to extract keywords and inter-linkages were identified through the keywords. Among K-SDGs, 15 goals are linked to forests except for Goal 5 and Goal 10. In addition, targets with the most positive impact are sustainable forest management (15.2), restoration of devastated land (15.3), conservation of protected areas (15.1), ecological restoration (15.8), conservation of endangered species (15.4), share the benefit of genetic resources (15.5), prevention of capture and smuggling (15.6), and eradication of invasion by genetic resources (15.7). In order to achieve goals related to forest sectors, an understanding that includes society, environment, and economy is directly or indirectly needed. In the future, studies that investigate major circumstances such as the inter-linkage of each target or indicator will be needed that use quantitative methods or modeling.

Carbon stored on land is discharged into rivers through water flow, which is an important mechanism for energy transfer from land to river ecosystems. The goal of this study was to identify the relationship between land cover and carbon flux mediated through precipitation. In order to clarify the general relationship, research was conducted on a range of national scales. Eighty-two watershed samples from an area where the urban land cover area was less than 10% and with a water-quality measurement point at an outlet were delineated. Carbon flux and soil organic carbon of the watershed was estimated using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model, Forest Biomass and Dead Organic Matter Carbon model, and other data. Finally, the data were analyzed to determine the relationship between soil organic carbon and carbon flux. As a result, it was concluded that the carbon flux of the watershed increased with increasing area of the watershed. Under the same area condition, it was revealed that the greater the forest soil organic carbon, the less the carbon flux released from the watershed. Through this study, it was observed that as the above-ground biomass of forest increased, the carbon flux from watershed to river outlet decreased logarithmically.