Korean Wooden Architectural Heritages at An Increased Risk of Termite Damage due to Temperature Change

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Wooden architectural heritages in Korea have been severely damaged by termites, andthis damage is expected to increase owing to climate change. This study aimed to evaluate the changesin termite damage risk due to climate change specifically in Korean wooden architectural heritages.
A multiple regression equation was developed to estimate the daily average temperature from thelocation information (latitude, longitude, and elevation) for 40 years (1980-2019). The locationinformation of 106 nationally designated wooden architectural heritages distributed across 84 citieswas used to estimate the daily mean temperature of each cultural heritages. Referring to a previousstudy on the ecological characteristics of R. speratus, a dominant termite species in Korea, thetemperature at which termite activity is possible was confirmed, and the amount of wood consumedin relation to the temperature change was estimated. Based on this, the number of days available fortermite activity and the amount of termite wood intake in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s wereestimated. Consequently, we found that the number of active days for termites increased from 243to 249, 251, and 253 days in each decade. The wood consumption rate also increased by 9.9% over40 years, from 6,657 to 6,777, 7,008, and 7,314 μg/ worker/year, respectively. This study was thefirst to estimate the activity period and wood intake of termites in Korea’s wooden architecturalheritages, thereby providing valuable information for the preservation and management of thesewooden heritages.