• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.265-277
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• 2019

Changes in the amount, intensity, frequency, and type of precipitation, in conjunction with global warming and climate change, critically impact groundwater recharge and associated groundwater level fluctuations. Monthly gravity levels by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) are acquired to monitor total water storage changes at regional and global scales. However, there are inherent difficulties in quantitatively relating the GRACE observations to groundwater level data due to the difficulties in spatially representing groundwater levels. Here three local interpolation methods (kriging, inverse distance weighted, and natural neighbor) were implemented to estimate the areal distribution of groundwater recharge changes in South Korea during the 2002-2016 period. The interpolated monthly groundwater recharge changes are compared with the GRACE-derived groundwater storage changes. There is a weak decrease in the groundwater recharge changes over time in both the GRACE observations and groundwater measurements, with the rate of groundwater recharge change exhibiting mean and median values of -0.01 and -0.02 cm/month, respectively.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.357-367
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• 2018

Recent earthquakes in Gyeongju and Pohang have raised interest in liquefaction in South Korea. Liquefaction, which is a phenomenon that excessive pore pressure is generated and the shear strength of soil is decreased by repeated loads such as earthquakes, causes severe problems such as ground subsidence and overturning of structures. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and prepare for the possibility of liquefaction in advance. In general, the possibility of liquefaction is quantitatively assessed using the Liquefaction Potential Index (LPI), but it takes a lot of time and effort for performing site response analysis which is essential for the liquefaction evaluation. In this study, a simple method to evaluate the liquefaction potential without executing the site response analysis in a downtown area with a lot of borehole data was proposed. In this simple method, the correlation between the average shear wave velocity of the target location ground and the LPI divided by thickness of liquefiable layer was established. And the applicable correlation equation for various rock outcrop accelerations were derived. Using the 104 boreholes information in Seoul, the correlation equation between LPI and the shear wave velocity (ground water level: 0m, 1m, 2m, 3m) is obtained and the possibility of liquefaction occurrence in Seoul and Gyeongju is evaluated. The applicability of the proposed simple method was verified by comparing the LPI values calculated from the correlation equation and the LPI values derived using the existing site response analysis. Finally, the distribution map of LPI calculated from the correlation was drawn using Kriging, a geostatistical technique.