Korean Journal of Agricultural Science ISSN:2466-2402(Print) 2466-2410(Online) 농업과학연구

This study was conducted to compare the level of vegetation recovery based on the forest restoration techniques (natural restoration and artificial restoration) determined using the satellite imagery that targeted forest fire damaged areas in Goseong-gun, Gangwon-do. The study site included the area affected by the Goseong forest fire (1996) and the East Coast forest fire (2000). We conducted a time-series analysis of satellite imagery on the natural restoration sites (19 sites) and artificial restoration sites (12 sites) that were created after the forest fire in 1996. In the analysis of satellite imagery, the difference normalized burn ratio (dNBR) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were calculated to compare the level of vegetation recovery between the two groups. We discovered that vegetation was restored at all of the study sites (31 locations). The satellite image-based analysis showed that the artificial restoration sites were relatively better than the natural restoration sites, but there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p > 0.05). Therefore, it is necessary to select a restoration technique that can achieve the goal of forest restoration, taking the topography and environment of the target site into account. We also believe that in the future, accurate diagnosis and analysis of the vegetation will be necessary through a field survey of the forest fire-damaged sites.