• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.35-51
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to improve the previous groundwater contamination vulnerability assessment method, apply it to the study area, and select priority areas for groundwater management based on the quantitative analysis of groundwater contamination vulnerability. For this purpose, first, the previous 'potential contamination' based on groundwater contamination vulnerability assessment method was upgraded to the methodology considering 'adaptation capacity' which reduced contamination. Second, the weight of groundwater contamination vulnerability assessment factors was calculated based on the analytical hierarchy process(AHP) and the result of survey targeting groundwater experts. Third, Gyeonggi-do was selected as the study area and the improved methodology and weight were implemented with GIS and actual groundwater contamination vulnerability assessment was carried out. Fourth, the priority area for groundwater contamination management was selected based on the quantitative groundwater contamination vulnerability assessment diagram. The improved detailed groundwater contamination vulnerability assessment factors in this study were a total of 15 factors, and 15 factors were analyzed as new and improved weight with higher 'adaptation capacity' than the assessment factor corresponding to the previous 'potential contamination' in the weight calculation result using AHP. Also, the result of groundwater contamination vulnerability assessment in Gyeonggi Province using GIS showed that Goyang and Gwangmyeong which were adjacent to Seoul had a high groundwater contamination vulnerability and Pocheon and Yangpyeong County had a relatively low groundwater contamination vulnerability. In this study, the previous groundwater contamination vulnerability assessment was improved and applied to study areas actually. The result of this study can be utilized both directly and indirectly for the groundwater management master plan at national and local government level in the future.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.17-35
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• 1994

This study was performed to investigate and assess the heavy metal contamination of sediment in main stream and tributaries of the Han-river in the vicinity of Seoul. Sediment were sampled at eight locations of main stream and eighteen locations of tributaries in the spring, summer, and fall in 1993. Six heavy metals of Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, and Hg, were assessed. For an assessment of heavy metal contamination in sediment, the assessment method of Hakanson was modified to estimate for Han-river, then classification method of Muller in sediment quality was applied. For an assessment of contamination in each heavy metal, Contamination factor C$_f^i$ which was defined the ratio of concentration of i heavy metal in investigated location to background concentration of i heavy metal in uncontaminated upper area was used. The sediment quality in each heavymetal was classified as follows if C$_f^i$<1, Class I for Non contamination, if 1 < C$_f^i$ < 3, Class II for Low contamination, if 3< C$_f^i$ <6, Class III for Moderate contamination, if 6< C$_f^i$ <12, Class IV for Considerable contamination, and if C$_f^i$ > 12, Class V for High contamination.(abbreviation)

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.106-112
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• 2011

This study developed preliminary assessment methodology for priority listing of soil and groundwater contamination sources, considering source characteristics, local environments and risk receptors. Source characteristics were evaluated by scoring relative risk of contamination sources. Local environments were evaluated by scoring annual rainfall, hydraulic conductivity of aquifer, and annual groundwater use. Risk receptors were evaluated by scoring local population, direct distance to surface water, direct distance to drinking-water wells. Scores of each parameter were allocated by analysing distribution of parameter values obtained from government databases. Distributed scores of source characteristics local environments: risk receptors were 12 : 12 : 12. The preliminary assessment scored 0 to 36 for each soil and groundwater sources. Inventory of soil and groundwater sources consisted of 7 categories. This study applied the preliminary assessment methodology to Manan-Gu, Anyang City, Korea. The number of car repair and washing facility was the largest in the contamination source inventory. Petroleum storage facilities showed the highest assessment score. The preliminary assessment methodology also indicated that Anyang-Dong was the priority section among Anyang-Dong, Suksu-Dong, Bakdal-Dong. This study is the first trial for relative ranking soil and groundwater contamination sources by considering source and local characteristics. Therefore, further researches and revision of the preliminary assessment methodology need to be pursued for various applications.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 1995

To assess preliminarily the contamination potential of water resources including groundwater owing to the hydrogeological characteristics of landfill site and the potential impact to humans and animals through contamination of water resources by leachate, "Landfill Site Preliminary Assessment Model(LASPAS)" was contrived. LASPAS could help them proritization of remediation of landfil sites by the convenient and relatively simple evaluation method of landfill site features. LASPAS was designd to aliot numerical ratings to landfill site related factors undermentioned; 1) hydrogeological factors such as hydraulic conductivity of aquifer, thickness of confining layer over aquifer, topographical slope, net recharge, and subsurface containment 2) water resources contamination factors of impacts on receptors such as proximity to drinking water supply, substitutability of drinking water supply, type of use of water resources, known impact on drinking water supply, and flood potential.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.209-212
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• 2004

Soil environment has not received much attention from the environmental impact assessor community although soil contamination may affect human health and the eco-system. This study was the first trial to discuss the role and importance of soil environment in the environmental impact assessment(EIA) and suggest possible environmental impact assessment schemes for soil. The objectives of the study were to show the effects of soil contamination on human health, the environment and the social community, suggest efficient EIA schemes in Korea and establish the basic concepts of soil environment assessment involving fate and transport of contaminants and its risk.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.15-25
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• 2008

Contamination level assessment of harbor dredged materials is carried out for beneficial use, which generated annually due to port construction and maintenance of harbor channel. The basic purpose of environmental risk assessment was a scientific approach to susceptibility of hazard risk to human's health from different dredged materials. And this paper proposes a guideline of safely beneficial use of dredged materials at both industrial area and residental area, generated from major port execution throughout a sound investigation of their contamination levels. Newly proposed guidelines were in general higher levels compared to both current guidelines of treatment and use of dredged materials and soil environment protection levels. Finally, environmental assessment results of dredged material contamination generated in major ports of Korea for beneficial use based on pre-assessment environmental levels show that some port's dredged materials contain heavy metals such as Cd, As, Cr and Zn, more than base levels which requires more precise contamination investigation. Others were found to be very appropriate for beneficial use.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.70-86
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• 2003

Despite its usability, TCE has been managed as a hazardous material due to the toxicity and many contamination cases were surveyed in some developed countries. U.S.EPA(Kram et al., 2001) suggested DNAPL characterization methods and approaches based on survey experiences at several sites. However, Korea has not the least assessment of contamination and trial of remediation, although there are a lot of doubtable areas where ground water would be contaminated with TCE. In this study, we try to assess the volume and extent of ground water contamination with TCE and delineate the contamination source zones in an industrial area. Ground water in this area flows through fractures and the contaminant TCE has the properties of high volatility, high density and low partitioning to soil material. Thus, we applied a variety of technical approaches to identify the contamination status; documentary, hydrogeochemical, hydrogeological and geological surveys. In addition, additional survey was performed based on the interim findings, which showed that ground water contamination was limited to the relatively small area with high concentrations to the deep place. The contamination source zone is estimated to be the asphalt test institute where a great deal of TCE has been used to analyze the amount of asphalt soluble in TCE since 1984. Based on the contamination characterization and a myriad of documents about ground water remediation, appropriate site remediation management options will be recommended later. This study is now under way and this paper was focused on describing the technical approaches used to achieve the goals of this study.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.83-96
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• 2005

Brominated flame retardants have the market share of 40%, comparing others because of their low cost and highly effective retardation against the flame. However, their toxic effects in human and properties of the accumulation in the environments have been issued among the international organization such as EU, OECD and etc. It, therefore, was surveyed the classification, toxic effects, and the usage of Brominated flame retardants, the trends for their managements in the world and Korea, and their contaminated levels in Korean Peninsula. In addition, the management directions for them were proposed. Penta, octa, and deca-BDE among brominated retardants will seem to be prohibited by the regulation as a flame retardants for plastics in Europe because of their toxic effects. Although Penta and Octa BDEs was used marginally in Korea, deca-BDE was 27% of brominated flame retardants (49,050 ton) which had been used in 2002. However, risk assessment for brominated retardants might not launched in Korea, yet. These reports demonstrate that toxic brominated retardants such as PBDEs will be assessed for their usage and the level of contamination in the environment in the area of the point sources like the industrial areas, incinerators and etc. However, the law to regulate the hazardous chemicals seems not to be dictated the monitoring of their contamination in the environment. We, therefore, suggest how to evaluate and to monitor the toxic contaminants with EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) and LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) system. Further, to establish the management system of BFRs (such as the monitering of contamination levels in environments, life cycle assessment, and risk assessment for the toxic chemicals), It can be recommended the law to deal with the method analyzing chemicals will be established, which contains QA/QC (Quality Assurance and Quality Control) to evaluate the analytic capability of the companies to prepare EIS (Environment Impact Statement) or other institutes for analyzing chemicals.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.26-38
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• 2013

In this study, priority for groundwater contamination management was assessed based on regional vulnerability in Goyang-si area, Gyonggi-do, Korea using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and geographic information system (GIS). We proposed a concept for regional vulnerability to groundwater contamination with using socio-environmental vulnerability factors, which can be classified into three properties including regional hydrogeological property, contamination property, and groundwater use property. This concept is applied to Goyang-si area. For AHP analysis, an expertise-targeted survey was conducted. Based on the survey, a total of 10 factors (criteria) and corresponding weights for regional vulnerability assessment were determined. The result shows that regional contamination property is the most weighted factor among the three property groups (hydrogeological property: contamination property: groundwater use property = 0.3: 0.4: 0.3). Then, database layers for those factors were constructed, and regional vulnerability to groundwater contamination was assessed by weighted superposition using GIS. Results show that estimated regional vulnerability score is ranged from 22.7 to 94.5. Central and western areas of Goyang-si which have groundwater tables at shallow depths and are mainly occupied by industrial and residential areas are estimated to be relatively highly vulnerable to groundwater contamination. Based on assessed regional vulnerability, we classified areas into 4 categories. Category 1 areas, which are ranked at the top 25% of vulnerability score, take about 2.8% area in Goyang-si and give a high priority for groundwater contamination management. The results can provide useful information when the groundwater management authority decide which areas should be inspected with a high priority for efficient contamination management.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.73-78
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• 2008

For a given soil-contaminated site, a level of soil contamination is characterized and decisions on risk may be made from the risk assessment. The study evaluated critical design factors for the determination of sample size in the sampling design plan and the assessment of soil contaminant- leaching to groundwater. Two variables, the minimum relative detectable difference (T) and coefficient of variation (CV) were evaluated for the sample size determination. The minimum number of samples can be appropriately determined by CV under a T value greater than or equal to 0.2. Soil-contaminant leaching to groundwater was evaluated by using the Soil Screening Level equation of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Risk Based Screening Level equation of American Society for Testing and Materials, with the same input parameters. The groundwater concentrations estimated from soil contaminant concentrations were significantly affected by the Darcy velocity of groundwater and the organic content of soil.