• Title/Summary/Keyword: Biological environmental assessment

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The Status of Soil and Groundwater Contamination in Japan and Case Studies of their Remediation (일본의 토양지하수오염 및 복원사례)

  • Komai, Takeshi;Kawabe, Yoshishige
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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    • 2003.04a
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    • pp.25-39
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    • 2003
  • Risk and exposure assessment for subsurface environment is very important for both aspects of health and environmental protection as well as making decision of remedial goal for engineering activities. Exposure due to hazardous chemicals in the subsurface environment is essential to assess risk lev121 to individual person, especially from soil and groundwater environmental media. In this paper, the status of soil and groundwater contamination is presented to discuss on the problem for environmental risk assessment. The methodologies of fate and exposure models are also discussed by conducting the case studies of exposure assessment for heavy metals, organic compounds, and dioxin compounds. In addition, the structure of exposure models and available data for model calculation are examined to make clear more realistic exposure scenarios and the application to the practical environmental issues. Three kinds of advanced remediation techniques for soil and groundwater contamination are described in this paper, The most practical method for VOCs is the bio-remediation technique in which biological process due to consortium of microorganisms can be applied. For more effective remediation of soil contaminated by heavy metals we have adopted the soil flushing technique and clean-up system using electro-kinetic method. We have also developed the advanced techniques of geo-melting method for soil contaminated by DXNs and PCB compounds. These techniques are planed to introduce and to apply for a lot of contaminated sites in Japan.

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Review on the Conservation Value and Assessment Criteria of Vegetation (식생의 보전가치와 평가기준에 대한 검토)

  • Choung, Heung-Lak;Song, Jong-Suk;Lee, Kyu Song;Kim, In-Taek;Kim, Jong-Hong;Yang, Keum-Chul;Chun, Young-Moon
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.15 no.5
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    • pp.339-355
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    • 2006
  • In this paper, we reviewed the assessment criteria and conservation value used to evaluate vegetation. The Degree of Green Naturality (DGN) and the Grade of Vegetation Conservation (GVC) are both sets of criteria that estimate the degree of human disturbance or natural value of vegetation. The criteria are extensively used in decision-making about the natural environment conservation and environment impact assessment. Sometimes, social issues can rise because the criteria are not clear. This study aims to evaluate the criteria based on the many aspects of the related literatures and suggest reasonable revised criteria. In addition, criteria for representing the relative value of valuable vegetation conservation are suggested. The DGN and GVC are essentially same; both have 11 degrees and 5 grades. While the DGN is subdivided into levels of anthropogenic disturbances, the GVC indicates the priority for conserving valuable vegetation. Therefore, the DGN is very useful for assessing land development projects, etc., while the GVC is needed to delineate the Ecological Assessment Map(EAM). In conclusion, it is desirable that both criteria should be used together appropriately.

Preliminary Environmental Impact Assessments on Fish Compositions and the Ecological Health of Jeokbyeok River on the Road Construction of Muju-Geumsan Region (무주-금산간 도로건설에 따른 적벽강의 어류 종 조성 분석 및 생태건강도 사전환경성평가)

  • Lee, Sang-Jae;Park, Hee-Sung;An, Kwang-Guk
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.26 no.1
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    • pp.27-43
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    • 2017
  • The objectives of the study were to evaluate fish compositions, endangered species, community structure, physical habitat, and general water quality for a preliminary environmental impact assessment of Jeokbyeok River on the road construction between two regions. Total number of species and total number of individuals, based on CPUE, were 23 and 1186, respectively. The endangered species (I, II) as the legal protection species were Pseudopungtungia nigra (79 samples) Gobiobotia brevibarba) (5) Gobiobotia macrocephala (2), indicating a requiring of endangered species conservation. In the meantime, exotic species and ecological disturbing species such as Micropterus salmoides and Lepomis macrochirus, were not present, indicating a well conserved area. According to fish community analysis, values of species diversity index were high (range: 0.788 - 1.030), and the dominance index were low (range: 0.097 - 0.183), indicating that the fish community in this area was maintained well without high dominacne by specific species. Also, fish analysis on tolerance guilds and trophic guilds showed that the proportions of sensitive species were largely exceeded the proportions of the tolerant species, while the proportions of insectivore species were largely exceeded the proportions of the omnivore species. This outcome suggests that the ecosystem was well maintained in terms of tolerance and trophic compositions (food chain). Ecological health, based on the multi-metric fish model of Fish Assessment Integrity (FAI), reflected those fish conditions. In other words, values of FAI model averaged 82.4, which means a "good condition" in the criteria of ecological health by the Minstry of Environment, Korea. In addition, general water quality and physical habitat analyses showed that the system was in good condition. Under these conditions, if the road constructions between the two regions happen in the future, inorganic suspended solids may increase in the waterbody, and this may result in indirect or direct influences on the physical habitats and food chain as well as fish compositions, so the ecological protections and prevention strategy from the soil erosion are required in the system.

Assessment of Degree of Naturalness of Vegetation on the Riverine Wetland (하천습지의 식생학적 자연도 평가)

  • Chun, Seung-Hoon
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.1-11
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    • 2011
  • This study was carried out to suggest the baseline data necessary for vegetation restoration at riverine wetland within stream corridor. We used the prevalence index for wetland assessment by applying the method of weighted averages with index values based on five hydrophyte indicator status as defined by estimated probability occurred in wetland. We selected near nature and urbanized reach of Gap and Yanghwa streams as experimental site. Although two sites have some different disturbance and characteristics of watershed, they showed that similarity of vegetation community including three dominant species - Salix koreensis, Phragmites communis, Miscanthus sacchariflorus - was very high. But in case of Yanghwa stream, various kinds of emergent plants along wetted condition were distinctly occurred, resulted from difference of hydrological regime and substrate, etc. Degree of naturalness of vegetation at the sampled areas indicated that near nature area of Gap stream and all area of Yanghwa stream were fitted as riverine wetland, while urbanized area of Gap stream has changed into upland condition. In conclusion assessment system using prevalence index would be considered an effective method for evaluating of natural states of riverine wetland, but further integrated consideration of physical, hydrological, and biological factors of stream process, and also with considering the difference between those qualitative data of vegetation community.

Virus Resistant and Susceptible Transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana Plants Expressing Coat Protein Gene of Zucchini green mottle mosaic virus for LMO Safety Assessment

  • Kim, Min-Jea;Choi, Sun-Hee;Kim, Tae-Sung;Park, Min-Hye;Lim, Hee-Rae;Oh, Kyung-Hee;Kim, Tae-San;Lee, Min-Hyo;Ryu, Ki-Hyun
    • The Plant Pathology Journal
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.206-211
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    • 2004
  • Transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana plants harboring coat protein (CP) gene of Zucchini green mottle mosaic virus (ZGMMV) were generated for virus-resistant screening and complementation analysis of related viruses for environmental safety assessment (SA) of living modified organism (LMO) purposes. Transformation of leaf disc of N.benthamiana was performed by using Agrobacterium-mediated method and the pZGC-PPGA748 containing the ZGMMV CP and NPTII genes. Two kinds of transgenic homozygous groups, virus-resistant and virus-susceptible N.benthamiana lines, were obtained by screening of challenging homologous virus for Tl generations. These two pathologically different lines can be useful for host-virus interactions and LMO environmental SA.

Distribution of the Organic Contents in Reservoir Sediment (호소 퇴적물의 유기물 분포)

  • Hwang, Jong Yeon;Han, Eui Jung;Yu, Soon Ju;Yoon, Young Sam;Cheon, Se Eug;Kim, Tae Keun
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.8 no.2
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    • pp.95-107
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    • 1999
  • The organic contents of reservoir sediment can offer a good indicator to events in history of lake life. Reservoir sediment have many information of the past and future fingerprint about development direction of life cycle in biological animals. So, in this study we made an effort to know the distribution of organic contents in Daecheong reservoir sediment. Items for this investigations are such as follows: Loss on ignition, COD, Organic carbon, TN, TP, heavy metal contents, Loss on ignitions were determined in 6.44~15.91% and COD were determined in 1.606~6.859%, organic carbon in 1,077~3.743%. Contents of TP and TN were in the range of 0.083~0.757%, and 0.645~0.926%, respectively.

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Nano-safety Management and Exposure Assessment of Nanomaterials Producing Facilities (나노물질 생산시설의 환경노출 평가와 안전관리)

  • Umh, Ha Nee;Roh, Jinkyu;Park, Junsu;Kwak, Byoung Kyu;Lee, Byung Cheon;Choi, Kyunghee;Yi, Jongheop;Kim, Younghun
    • Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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    • v.50 no.1
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    • pp.112-117
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    • 2012
  • With the development of nanotechnology, nano-consumer products have been popularized. For the past 10 years, potential risk of nanomaterials to human and environment have been raised carefully. Especially, workers, who directly handle nanomaterials in laboratories and manfacturers, will lead to direct exposure of nanomaterials. Therefore, direct exposure assessment and field monitoring of nanomaterials are required to assess and manage the nanomaterial exposure to human and environment. In this work, two nano-manufacturing companies, which had plasma and sol-gel processes, were selected to analyze the main exposure source and process with in-situ SMPS (scanning mobility particle sizer) and ex-situ TEM (transmission electron microscopy). The results showed that the colloidal nanoparticle in liquid phase was easily evaporated and monitored by SMPS. Most serious thing is that the workers does not know about the potential risk of nanomaterials, and thus they are not taking proper protection activities, such as PPE (personal protective equipment). Therefore, exposure assessment for nanomaterial handling facilities should be additionally carried out, and nano-safety management protocols are also provided.

Advancing Risk Assessment through the Application of Systems Toxicology

  • Sauer, John Michael;Kleensang, Andre;Peitsch, Manuel C.;Hayes, A. Wallace
    • Toxicological Research
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.5-8
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    • 2016
  • Risk assessment is the process of quantifying the probability of a harmful effect to individuals or populations from human activities. Mechanistic approaches to risk assessment have been generally referred to as systems toxicology. Systems toxicology makes use of advanced analytical and computational tools to integrate classical toxicology and quantitative analysis of large networks of molecular and functional changes occurring across multiple levels of biological organization. Three presentations including two case studies involving both in vitro and in vivo approaches described the current state of systems toxicology and the potential for its future application in chemical risk assessment.

Summer Patterns and Diel Variations of Fish Movements Using Fish Trap Sampling Technique in the Juksan Weir (죽산보의 어도에서 트랩 샘플링 기법을 이용한 하절기, 일주기별 어류 이동성 평가)

  • Han, Jeong-Ho;Ko, Dae-Geun;Lim, Byung Jin;Park, Jong-Hwan;An, Kwang-Guk
    • Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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    • v.21 no.6
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    • pp.879-891
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    • 2012
  • The objective of this study was to evaluate seasonal patterns and diel variations of fish movements in the Juksan Weir which was constructed in 2010 at the down-stream of Yeongsan-River watershed. For this study, we monitored day-and-night movement(24 Hr cycle) and seasonal fish migration(June ~ August) patterns in 2011 along with species compositions and abundances depending on the locations of the traps within the fishway. Total number of species sampled was 14 and the total number of individuals was 1,263 with only the size-fractions(as total length) of the fish < 20 cm during the study. Seasonal analysis of fish movement in the fish way showed that highest frequency in the movement occurred in June - July, which is closely associated with a spawning peak season. The most dominant species using the fishway was Squalidus chankaensis tsuchigae, and this species turned out to be 26.9% of the total in the use rate of fishway. Daily monitoring of fish movements showed that most frequent movements occurred between 18:00 PM and 21:00 PM when the fish have a feeding time generally. The migratory fish were not found in the fishway during the study. Mean current velocity during the study $0.42{\pm}0.02ms^{-1}$(n = 42), and there were no significant statistical differences(p > 0.05) among the daily and monthly velocities in the fishway. The use rate of fish passage, in terms of fish species, was 48%, compared with total sampling of fish species(29 species) at the down-river regions during the same period, indicating a low use rate. Further continuous long-term monitoring should be conducted to evaluate the impacts of the weir construction in the river.