Heavy Metal Contamination of Roadside Gully-Pot Sediments, Seoul, Korea

In urban environments, the surface land impermeability fundamentally related to urban growth emphasizes the environmental problems such as the storm water peak flow (so-called the urban flooding) and the pollution. The conventional urban drainage system provides a number of temporary reservoirs intercepting and retaining surface-derived pollutants following their introduction to and deposition upon the impermeable surface. Gully-pots are common features in urban drainage systems in Korea, which were installed for draining rainwater to prevent regurgitation in rainy season and retaining larger particles, hence minimizing pipe blockage problems. When the road runoff conveying sediment enters a gully-pot, the sediment mixes with the gully liquor causing direct pollution of receiving waters. The characteristics of local sediment contamination are usually related to the types of land use activities that take place or have taken place within the area., This study was undertaken to evaluate the spatial and temporal variations of the contamination of gully-pot sediments in Seoul with respect to heavy metals such as As, Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, Pb, Cu and Zn. The heavy metal data were examined according to the land use type. In this paper, sampling sites in Seoul were divided into six groups (commercial area, industrial area, residental area, motor way, rural area, and local pollution).