Doo-Ahn Kwak, Woo-Kyun Lee, Yowhan Son, Sungho Choi, Seongjin Yoo

This study was performed to predict the potential distribution of forest cover by the climate change in South Korea. Hydrological and thermal indices such as the Precipitation Effectiveness Index (PEI), Warmth Index (WI) and Minimum Temperature of the Coldest month Index (MTCI) prepared were used as climatic controllers of forest-cover distribution. The forest cover map was used to investigate how PEI, WI and MTCI influence the present distribution of forest cover. In this study, the discriminant analysis, which is one of multivariate analyses, was employed to predict the distribution of future forest cover. In order to perform the discriminant analysis, the discriminant functions were developed by tree species as based on present forest cover map and PEI, WI and MTCI. And then they were used to predict the potential distribution of forest cover with such future climatic factors. The assessment was conducted using cross-validation method with present forest cover map and climatic factors. As a result, the accuracy of prediction was evaluated to be averagely 58% for 7 tree species. Finally, it was predicted that the coniferous trees would be replaced rapidly with deciduous trees during 50 years. However, the changing progress to deciduous forest would slow down between after-50 and -100 years.