Introduction: I am a Tulip Tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) rooted on a green hillside in Hongcheon-gun, Gangwon Province. In my many rings of life, I have never felt a year as extreme as 2025. First came a punishing drought – month after month of clear skies and bone-dry soil. Then, suddenly, the summer monsoon rains arrived in force, drenching the mountains with relentless downpours. As a deep-rooted tree, I normally anchor this slope and drink greedily from the earth. But this year’s wild swing from drought to deluge has tested my very limits, and with them, the stability of the land beneath me. Let me tell you the story – from my perspective – of how parched roots and torrential rain together are threatening these forested slopes with landslides.
By spring 2025, drought had a stranglehold on our region. Through the dry winter and into early spring, hardly any rain or snow fell. The Korea Meteorological Administration issued dry weather alerts as the land grew parched【13†L1-L4】. I felt it deep in my roots: the usual trickle of meltwater in the soil never came. In fact, severe drought conditions persisted from late 2024 into 2025, due to unusually low winter snowfall and drying winds【18†L103-L111】. Many days I stood under an oddly hazy sky, as fires raged in the distance – the product of withered vegetation and unseasonable heat. (In late March 2025, a heatwave 8–10°C above normal baked Korea, turning forests into tinder【16†L69-L77】【18†L121-L124】.) My cousins on the drier ridges even saw wildfires sweep through, as climate change amplified the extreme warmth and aridity【16†L55-L63】【18†L121-L124】. Here in Hongcheon, we avoided the flames, but the ground at my feet cracked and hardened. The stream in the valley shrank to a thread. I dropped a few of my older leaves early, trying to save water. Some of my finer roots shriveled – tiny rootlets that normally knit into the surface soil simply dried up.
Such drought is more than uncomfortable – it quietly weakens the natural defenses of the slope. Plants like me play a huge role in stabilizing hillsides: our roots grip and bind the soil. But when the soil is powder-dry, it can crumble, and when a tree is moisture-stressed, it can’t reinforce the soil as well. Research confirms what I feel: during severe drought, trees lose root length, root area, and even root diameter as fine roots die off【40†L61-L69】. I certainly felt my own root network “shrinking” – I couldn’t explore the drying soil any further, and some roots likely died back. The remaining roots became denser and woodier in tissue (a tree’s natural response to drought stress)【40†L61-L69】, which might make them stiffer, but there were simply fewer living roots holding each chunk of earth. Our forest’s leafy canopy, normally lush by late spring, was thin and wilted, offering little shade to the baking ground. Every day without rain was a day our slopes grew a bit more fragile, unbeknownst to the people living below.
Yet, most outsiders only notice disasters when water is everywhere, not when it’s missing. Few realize how the “deep breath” of a drought can loosen a mountain’s soil, setting the stage for a landslide long before a single drop of rain falls. I stood on the hillside, my roots quietly biding time in dust-dry earth, and sensed a tension in the air: we all knew the rains would come eventually – and that the first big storm after such a drought could be a very dangerous one.
Let me tell you a bit about my physiology as a Tulip Tree and why it usually makes me a guardian of these slopes. I am a fast-growing deciduous tree, and I anchor myself with an extensive root system. My roots plunge deep into the ground – 3 to 4.5 meters down – in search of water and stability【33†L45-L53】. They also fan out wide, extending well beyond my canopy spread, lacing through the soil like a living net【33†L50-L58】. In healthy times, this architecture is a boon for the hillside: I extract water from the soil (helping prevent oversaturation) and physically bind the upper soil layers to the bedrock with my roots. My deep roots provide crucial stability, especially during dry spells when water is scarce【33†L45-L53】 – I can tap moisture reserves far below the surface, keeping myself (and the soil around me) from completely drying out. Beneath the ground, my roots entwine with those of my neighboring pines and oaks, and together we form a living mesh that holds the slope like reinforcing cables in the earth.
However, my species has its limits. Tulip Trees aren’t native to Korea – my ancestors came from far-off forests in North America. We thrive in rich, moist coves and lower mountain slopes, but we’re not very tolerant of extreme conditions. In fact, despite our broad adaptability in temperate climates, we “do not tolerate flooding [or] drought”【43†L111-L114】. That’s a bitter irony: this year I’ve had to endure both. Prolonged drought strains me – my leaves droop and I become vulnerable to pests or disease. And if soil stays waterlogged too long, my roots struggle for oxygen. I suspect the local Korean red pines (Pinus densiflora) around me handled the spring drought better; pines are tough, adapted to Korea’s ridges, often with deep taproots and fewer demands. The oaks (Quercus spp.) with their gnarly roots and hardy nature also hold firm in dry times. I, the exotic Tulip Tree, love water in moderation – but 2025’s pattern was anything but moderate.
By early June, I was surviving the drought, not thriving. I had lost some fine roots to dehydration, and my usually robust rate of photosynthesis was dialed down to conserve energy. Still, I stood ready, hoping my deep anchors would be enough to weather what was coming next. Little did I know how dramatically the skies would soon reverse course.
In late June 2025, the monsoon rains finally arrived – and they arrived with a vengeance. Forecasts from the KMA had warned us trees that this summer’s jangma (monsoon season) could be one for the record books: possibly 1.5 times the usual rainfall was expected【11†L173-L177】. Normally, Gangwon’s monsoon runs from late June through July, roughly a month of intermittent rains. This year, it was projected to last ~31 days【11†L173-L177】, and the central region (which includes Gangwon) was predicted to get the heaviest deluge. Last summer, our central provinces saw over 500 mm of rain during monsoon【11†L181-L187】, and this year could be even wetter. As a tree who feels every raindrop on my leaves and every surge of moisture in my roots, I braced myself.
Sure enough, the downpours began. The first storm brought over 100 mm in a day. My dry, cracked soil eagerly drank the initial rain, but soon the ground became muddy paste. After so many dry months, the soil’s ability to absorb water was uneven – in some spots, rainwater rushed off, cutting rills and gullies in the slope; in other spots, it pooled. For me, the influx of water was lifesaving at first – I rehydrated, and wilted foliage perked up. But as the rain persisted day after day, the situation turned precarious. The soil around my roots went from rock-hard to soupy. I can sense soil moisture through my root tips, and at a certain point, the earth was saturated – completely filled with water. Then, more rain arrived. Now water had nowhere to go but to flow overland or build up pressure underground.
We trees do what we can to mitigate heavy rain. My canopy and those of my neighbors act like umbrellas, breaking the fall of raindrops and reducing how much hits the ground at once. Our leaves and branches intercept some water, and our roots create channels in the soil that can help drainage. I drank as fast as I could – drawing water up through my roots and pumping it toward my leaves (which transpire it back into the air). But even my considerable thirst was nothing compared to the volumes falling from the sky. Within a few days, the soil on our slope turned into a waterlogged sponge. I felt a deep unease – the kind of primal alarm a tree feels when the ground that has held it for decades begins to shift slightly.
Remarkably, something else happens in such conditions that most humans don’t realize: my roots’ grip on the soil actually weakens when they are supersaturated. Scientists have observed that as roots become wetter, their tensile strength decreases – wet woody roots are less resistant to pulling and breaking【39†L169-L177】. In lab tests, roots lost strength within hours of being soaked, meaning a long rainstorm can directly reduce how much reinforcement we trees provide to the soil【39†L169-L177】. I could feel this myself – normally my roots feel taut and strong in the earth, but when utterly drenched they turned slightly limp and slippery against the soil. This is nature’s cruel timing: just when soil pore water pressure is highest (pushing soil particles apart) and slopes most need the binding power of roots, the roots are at their weakest.
And there was yet more rain on the way. The KMA issued warnings; on one particularly stormy day, a landslide alert for all of Hongcheon-gun was raised to “Serious,” the highest level【37†L57-L60】. We heard distant sirens and emergency messages echoing through the valleys. As an old Tulip Tree, I don’t exactly watch TV weather reports, but I read the signs of distress: the river below turned brown and roared with debris, mycelium networks in the soil sent distress signals up my roots, and the smell of freshly churned earth was in the air.
Then it happened – the kind of event every slope-dwelling tree fears. After days of relentless rainfall, the hillside across the valley from me gave way. With a thunderous rumble, a huge section of saturated earth and rock detached and slid downhill in a slurry of mud, boulders, and uprooted trees. I could only stand and watch as, in a matter of seconds, thousands of tons of hillside that had stood for centuries collapsed onto the road below【37†L67-L75】. The debris buried a mountain tunnel entrance and piled in a great heap, diverting the river. Thankfully, that particular landslide happened in a remote section of forest with no homes directly underneath – local officials had closed the road in advance, so no one was hurt. But it was a stark reminder of our vulnerability: even a forested slope can fail catastrophically when tortured by extreme weather.
【47†embed_image】 A massive landslide on a Gangwon mountainside after days of extreme monsoon rain (Jeongseon County, July 2023). Such slope failures release thousands of tons of rock and soil, underscoring how even tree-covered hills can give way under climate extremes.
I shuddered through my roots at the sight. And that wasn’t the only incident. Across Gangwon Province, 2025’s heavy rains triggered multiple slope failures. In lowland towns, rivers flooded and retaining walls buckled. In the rugged hills, landslides tore through roads and villages. I heard that in one nearby county, a whole mountainside scarred by wildfire earlier in the spring turned to mud and came down. In our own Hongcheon region, emergency crews kept busy clearing smaller landslides and fallen trees from rural roads. We saw swirling lights of ambulances one night after a slope failure in a neighboring valley. The authorities know this risk well – every year during monsoon there are reports of localized downpours causing landslides in the Korean mountains【11†L191-L198】. Just last summer, for example, a sudden cloudburst dumped 80 mm of rain in an hour in central Korea and unleashed slope failures that forced residents to evacuate【11†L181-L189】. And a memorable disaster a decade ago (July 2013) right here in Hongcheon killed several villagers when a rain-soaked hillside collapsed before dawn. Those tragedies weigh on all of us – people and trees alike.
As I stand firm on my particular slope, I feel the soil around me sliding ever so slightly – not a full landslide, mercifully, but a creep and sloughing of the topsoil. A chunk of the bank near my lower trunk slumped and got carried downslope by runoff. I lost my footing on a few minor roots that tore as the soil beneath them eroded. It’s an unsettling sensation: the ground itself seeming to liquefy and move. I held on as best I could, my root network like fingers desperately gripping a wet ball of clay.
I often hear humans say, “trees prevent landslides.” By and large, that’s true – we reduce the risk significantly. Our presence is why many slopes stay in place even under assault from rain. But my experience this year shows a more nuanced truth: to protect the slope, we trees ourselves need to be healthy and intact. When extreme drought precedes extreme rain, even the trees can become compromised. I wonder, did the long spring drought weaken some of my shallower-rooted neighbors such that they couldn’t hold on when the rains came? I saw a few understory trees (small birches and maples) simply topple once the soil turned to muck – perhaps they had died in the drought, becoming mere wooden poles rather than living anchors. In one case, I saw a dead pine get uprooted in the storm, its lifeless roots offering no resistance as it slid. This is a counterintuitive consequence of climate volatility: drought can kill or weaken vegetation, setting the stage for more severe landslides when heavy rains return. It’s a one-two punch. First the cohesion of dry soil and living roots is lost, then the hammer blow of rainfall finishes the job.
What about me, the Tulip Tree? Am I helping or hurting the situation? On the one hand, my deep and wide roots are certainly a stabilizing force in general. I have held this section of slope steady for decades, through many a storm. My presence undoubtedly has prevented smaller slips on this hill in the past. However, I must admit that being a Tulip Tree in this Korean landscape is an odd fit. The climate is warming here, which might favor broadleaf deciduous trees like me in the long run, but the volatility (droughts and deluges) is not something my species handles gracefully【43†L111-L114】. Native tree species have had millennia to adapt to the local climate patterns. The pines up the ridge, for example, have relatively flexible survival strategies: they endure poor, dry soils, and their resinous wood, while making them more fire-prone, also prevents rot during wet spells. The oaks and chestnuts have massive root systems and can tolerate typhoon winds and summer heat well. As a newcomer (likely planted here by someone years ago for ornamental or research reasons), I sometimes feel out of place. I prefer well-distributed rainfall and loamy soil, not drought-baked clay followed by monsoonal saturation【41†L99-L107】【43†L111-L114】. In a sense, the climate whiplash put me in a lose-lose situation: I was water-starved in spring (straining my health), then water-logged in summer (testing my stability).
Still, I do my best. My physiological traits can be a double-edged sword under these extremes. For instance, I have a high water uptake capacity – in normal times I help dry out the soil after rains by drinking deeply. During the early part of the monsoon, I and my forest comrades likely reduced runoff somewhat by sucking up gallons of water into our trunks and canopies. But once we reach our limit (and during drought, if we’ve lost fine roots, that limit is lower), additional water just percolates or runs off. Moreover, because I’m a tall, broad tree, heavy winds in a storm could leverage me as a big sail – increasing the chance I could uproot if the soil is weakened. (This time, fortunately, winds were mild; it was the sheer weight of water that did the damage.)
One question some might ask: are Tulip Trees being used or considered for planting on landslide-prone slopes in Korea? I don’t have concrete evidence of widespread planting for that purpose – typically, local authorities reinforce slopes with native vegetation and engineered structures. In Hongcheon, I’ve noticed humans building some new sabang dams (check dams) and retention walls in critical gullies. In fact, earlier in 2024, Hongcheon County secured funds to install 6 new check dams in high-risk landslide areas, aiming to complete them before the heavy rains【23†L183-L188】. This tells me people are concerned and taking action. As for tree planting, in some post-landslide restoration sites, foresters might introduce fast-growing species to quickly revegetate the slope. Tulip Trees are fast growers and have been planted ornamentally in Korea, but they are not a typical choice for erosion control. Fast-growing willows, poplars, or black locust are more common for soil bioengineering here, despite some downsides. If someone proposed planting Tulip Trees widely for slope stabilization, I’d advise caution: while we grow fast and tall, we’re not particularly hardy to extreme drought or inundation, which are exactly the stressors a landslide-prone slope will face in a changing climate【43†L111-L114】. A mix of deep-rooted native species might be wiser, coupled with mechanical stabilization. That said, a few of us Tulip Trees mixed into a diverse forest could still contribute to a robust root network – diversity can be strength, as different species handle stress differently.
As the rains finally ease and the summer sun breaks through the dissipating monsoon clouds, I stand overlooking a changed landscape. There are fresh scars on the distant hills where landslides tore down. The river’s course is slightly altered by debris. Down in the village, I see people clearing mud from their yards and engineers inspecting slopes for cracks. It’s a time for recovery – and reflection.
From my perspective rooted in the soil, the story of this year is one of “climate whiplash.” The swing from extreme dryness to extreme wetness is something our ecosystem hadn’t experienced so severely in the past. Historically, monsoon rains have always tested Korean mountains (Gangwon’s steep terrain is notoriously landslide-prone during heavy rain【27†L23-L30】), but healthy forests usually mitigated the worst. What’s underreported is how a preceding drought can prime a slope for failure – it’s a subtler, slow process of weakening that isn’t visible until the rain arrives. I, the Tulip Tree, felt that weakening day by day as my thirsty roots lost their grip on desiccated soil. By the time the first drop fell, our slope’s resilience was already compromised.
The lesson here is a call for both ecological and engineering solutions. Forests like mine need to be kept robust – that might mean planting species that can survive the new extremes, conserving older trees (with big root systems) as long as possible, and maybe even watering forests during severe droughts in critical spots (I’ve heard of humans doing supplemental watering in urban forests or spraying slopes to keep dust down; perhaps a targeted hydration of high-risk slopes could help keep roots alive in extreme drought). On the engineering side, I’ve observed how those sabang dams and drainage channels can catch debris and redirect water. Such measures, combined with us trees, create a multi-layer defense. In Hongcheon and across Gangwon, authorities now routinely shut down mountain trails and warn residents when heavy rain is forecast, acknowledging how real the landslide danger is【11†L191-L198】.
From my viewpoint, every extreme weather event is also a learning opportunity. After this year, I feel wiser (and perhaps a bit worn). I will regrow my lost roots, sprout new leaves, and adapt as best I can. I imagine telling my seedlings (if any of my wind-scattered seeds take root nearby) about the importance of digging their roots extra deep – deeper than I even thought necessary – because the climate is not as gentle as it once was. My slope has mostly held together this time, but I know the next challenge may not be far off. Perhaps it will be a late-summer typhoon with howling winds, or another flash drought followed by autumn downpours. Whatever comes, this Tulip Tree will be here, standing guard on the hillside.
Conclusion: The saga of 2025 in Hongcheon-gun is a vivid illustration of how climate extremes compound to threaten even the sturdiest landscapes. Drought weakened the natural grip of forests on the soil, then heavy rains exploited those weaknesses. Tulip Trees like me, with our deep roots and lofty crowns, have a complex role – we are both victims of the climate swings and crucial players in preventing disaster. Told from my perspective, I hope this narrative sheds light on the often hidden interplay between forest physiology and landslide risk. When you see a majestic tree on a slope, know that its roots are quietly laboring to hold that hill in place – and that those roots need a stable climate to do their best work. As the climate becomes more volatile, humans will need to support their leafy allies (through smart forestry and conservation) and prepare for the unexpected. After all, from my viewpoint under the canopy, drought and deluge are two sides of the same coin, and balancing between them is now the name of the game in our forested mountains.
- Korea Meteorological Administration (2025): Summer Monsoon Outlook. (Data indicates an extended monsoon from late June to late July with ~1.5× normal rainfall)【11†L173-L181】【11†L191-L198】.
- Climate Central (2025): Wildfires across Japan and South Korea fueled by climate change. (Describes early 2025 drought in Korea: “Severe drought conditions… emerged late in 2024”)【18†L103-L111】.
- Yonhap News (14 July 2023): “Landslide alerts at highest level as heavy rain hits Gangwon”. (Reports landslide warnings and incidents after downpours; e.g. rocks 6000 t tumbling down a mountainside in Gangwon)【37†L57-L65】【37†L67-L75】.
- KBS News (6 Mar 2024): “Hongcheon-gun to add 6 check dams for landslide prevention”. (Local plan to build sabang dams in landslide-prone areas before the 2024 monsoon)【23†L183-L188】.
- USDA Plant Guide for Liriodendron tulipifera (2020): Notes that Tulip Trees “do not tolerate flooding [or] drought” and are susceptible to storm damage【43†L111-L114】【43†L129-L137】. Also describes ideal habitat (deep, moist, well-drained soils)【41†L99-L107】.
- Greg Plant Care (Rankel, 2024): “Tulip Tree Roots” – Documents Tulip Tree root depth (10–15 ft) and spread, emphasizing their importance for stability and moisture uptake【33†L45-L53】【33†L50-L58】.
- BMC Ecology (Sun et al., 2024): Meta-analysis on drought effects – Finds severe drought reduces root length, diameter, and area in trees (while increasing root tissue density)【40†L61-L69】.
- Earth Surf. Proc. & Landforms (Hales & Miniat, 2017): Demonstrates that root tensile strength drops as root moisture content rises, leading to decreased root reinforcement in wet soils【39†L169-L177】. This dynamic makes slopes less stable during long rainstorms.
- Gangwon Province local data (2020): ~59% of Hongcheon’s land is forested【55†L5-L13】. High forest cover generally helps mitigate landslides, but 2019–2023 saw hundreds of landslides in Gangwon due to extreme weather【27†L25-L30】, underscoring the need to address climate extremes.