• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.23 no.2 s.58
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• pp.146-151
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• 2005

Recent studies indicated the utility of whole effluent assessment as a measure to control discharge of toxic effluents to receiving water in Korea. However, most studies have been focussed on acute lethal effects of toxic wastewater with little consideration of chronic sublethal impacts which are of growing concern in protecting aquatic ecosystem. We conducted acute and chronic toxicity tests with effluents discharged from five different dyeing plants in Gyeong-gi province using a marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri and a freshwater macroinvertebrate Daphnia magna to demonstrate the importance of assessing chronic sublethal effects. Various levels of acute and chronic toxicities were observed in many samples tested in this study. In 21-d chronic toxicity tests using D. magna all samples showed effects on reproduction and growth. Notable mortalities were also noted in three out of five effluents. The result of the Microtox assay indicated that acute microbial toxicity existed in effluents from two out of five plants and acute daphnid toxicity was observed in only one effluent. The result of this study clearly suggests chronic toxicity tests are more suitable to assess biological effects of effluents because it was shown from this study that even an effluent with no acute toxicity could cause chronically lethal and/or sublethal adverse effects on aquatic biota which may affect the population dynamics in aquatic ecosystem.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.541-546
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to evaluate ecosystem health effect in the physiological levels, based on ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) and total oxyradical scavenging capacity (TOSC) assays using sentinel fish species. We collected fish samples of Zacco platypus in May 2008 from 3 sampling sites including upstream, midstream, and downstream of the Gap Stream. EROD activity was averaged 4.54 in the downstream, 2.7 fold higher than upstream and indicated that stream condition was degraded along with longitudinal gradient from up to downstream. Downstream, especially was significantly increased (p < 0.01) so that indicated various pollutants including nutrient enrichment and toxicant exposure from the point sources, wastewater treatment plant and industrial complex may impact to the stream condition. In the mean time, TOSC assays showed higher in the midstream than other sites, but the values were not significant, compared to the previous report on oxidative stress. Overall results indicated that our approaches applying two biomarkers can be effectively used for diagnosis of the physiological levels in an integrative stream health assessments and can be applied as useful pre-warning techniques as a biochemical alarm system of organic pollutions.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.259-273
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• 2021

We conducted a study to investigate the characteristics of the carbon cycle of two streams (located in Shig a Prefecture, Japan), having similar size, namely, the Adokawa stream (length: 52 km, area: 305 km², watershed population: 8,000) and the Yasukawa stream (length: 62 km, area: 380 km², watershed population: 120,000), but with different degree of human activity. Samples were collected from these two streams at 14 (Adokawa stream) and 23 (Yasukawa stream) stations in the flowing direction. The dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentration and the stable carbon isotope ratio of DIC (δ¹³C-DIC) were measured in addition to the watershed features and the chemical variables of the stream water. The δ¹³C-DIC (-9.50 ± 2.54‰), DIC concentration (249 ± 76 µM), and electric conductivity (52 ± 13 µS/cm) in Adokawa stream showed small variations from upstream to downstream. However, the δ¹³C-DIC (-8.68 ± 2.3‰) upstream of Yasukawa stream was similar to that of Adokawa stream and decreased downstream (-12.13 ± 0.43‰). DIC concentration (upstream: 272 ± 89 µM, downstream: 690 ± 37 µM) and electric conductivity (upstream: 69 ± 17 µS/cm, downstream: 193 ± 37 µS/cm) were higher downstream than upstream of Yasukawa stream. The DIC concentration of Yasukawa stream was significantly correlated with watershed environmental variables, such as, watershed population density (r = 0.8581, p<0.0001, n = 23), and forest area percentage of the watershed (r = -0.9188, p<0.0001, n = 23). δ¹³C-DIC showed significant negative correlation with the DIC concentration (r = -0.7734, p<0.0001, n = 23), electric conductivity (r = -0.5396, p = 0.0079, n = 23), and watershed population density (r = -0.6836, p = 0.0003, n = 23). Our approach using a stable carbon isotope ratio suggests that DIC concentration and δ¹³C-DIC could be used as indicators for monitoring the health of stream ecosystems with different watershed characteristics.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.241-249
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• 2009

Heavy metal contaminants on the aquatic environment are of interest because they can have severe effects on economy and public health. Recently, the studies for monitoring of heavy metals try to do on aquatic system to assess safety and health of ecosystem by heavy metals. Thus, biological responses were investigated on Korean fairy shrimp Branchinella kugenumaensis exposed to cadmium (Cd) or copper (Cu) for long-periods (30 days). The survival rate decreased significantly (p<0.05) on B. kugenumaensis exposed to Cd and Cu at all concentrations. Especially, the highest decrease was observed at the relatively high concentration of Cd and Cu (p<0.01) and the response by Cd exposure was at dose-dependent. The growth rates were also decreased significantly (p<0.05) on B. kugenumaensis exposed to Cd and Cu for at all concentrations. Then, the reproduction rate, numbering cyst, was decreased significantly (p<0.01) on B. kugenumaensis after Cd or Cu exposures. Long exposure of the relatively high concentration Cd and Cu can have severe effects on the reproduction, while exposures of Cd and Cu can not have effects on sex ratios of B. kugenumaensis. Additionally, asymmetric telson deformity was only observed after Cd exposure. Therefore, these results suggest that B. kugenumaensis is a sensitive bio-indicator of heavy metal exposure and these biological responses of B. kugenumaensis give important information for long-term monitoring on aquatic ecosystem.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.757-767
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• 2006

Biological assessments are the primary tool for evaluating the biological condition of a water body and makes it possible to understand accumulative and long-term effect of stressors. They also provide reliable biological information for which disturbed systems are to be restored. Sustainable water environment is not enough with attaining only the clean water, but it should sustain healthy and diverse aquatic life. Aquatic organisms are affected by various factors, including not only water quality but also habitat condition and stressors, and thus good condition of both physical and chemical water quality is prerequisite for sustaining healthy organisms. Therefore, biological assessment, along with other physical and chemical assessments, are crucial for evaluating the health of a water body. Overall, sustainability of water environment demands the attainment and maintenance of ecological integrity, which is resulted from the combination of physical, chemical and biological integrity. The biological criteria will play very important role in the water resource management and policy issues, and thus bioassessment program should be fully implemented and supported eventually by the law. To keep ecosystem health of water environment safely from the toxic pollutants and other stressors, the following suggestions need to be considered in environmental quality standards in Korea. For the first step, the biological indicators need to be introduced in evaluating river quality condition; they provide a qualitative description of biological condition of water body. Secondly, the biological water quality standards using biotic indices should be developed and implemented under the consideration of characteristics of Korean river systems. Lastly, the ecological status classification regime (ESCR) should be developed and introduced; it could be used in quality assessment of the water environment in general. In developing ESCR, integration of physico-chemical, biological, and habitat parameters should be taken into account.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.spc
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• pp.42-49
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• 2008

For this study, we collected fishes of four times at the four site during June 2006 ${\sim}$ September 2007. In the result, the tolerance and omnivore species like a Carassius auratus and Pseudorasbora parva were largely dominated over all, and the sensitive species was not appeared at all except S4 in Shingu reservoir. This reservoir was appeared the simplified of trophic guild was shown in Shingu reservoir. Demonstrating that the omnivore species was occupied 78% of whole. According to the water chemistry data set obtained from the Korea Rural community & Agriculture corporation during $2002{\sim}2005$, the Shingu reservoir showed severe eutrophication and water pollution, therefore the increase of primary production and frequent algal blooms had been occurred. On the other hand, ecosystem health of reservoir was appeared "Fair${\sim}$Poor", and we judged that eutrophication and water pollution were due to this. Consequently, we thought that interception of nutrients and organic matters from the farmland and village and management of reservoir would be need, after this.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.441-452
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• 2020

The assessment of the river environment is widely applied as a method to establish the purpose and direction of river rehabilitation projects. This includes surveying and assessing the current state of the river environment and determining whether a previous river project was properly executed. The city of Seoul executed ecological river rehabilitation activities for the tributaries of the Han River from the 2000s following a masterplan to recover the physical shape and ecological functionality of damaged rivers. After the rehabilitation activities, the river environment had been changed substantially. In this study, physical properties, water quality properties, and ecological properties were assessed for 28 tributaries underthe control of the city of Seoul, and then those 3 properties were synthetically reassessed. From the result of the study on the physical properties, it was found that mostrivers had II-III grades. As for water quality properties, rivers had III-IV grades. The damaged rivers showed low grades of D-E based on the Aquatic Ecosystem Health evaluation. Accordingly, we concluded that all rivers of Seoul City have an unhealthy environment in terms of water quality and Aquatic Ecosystem Health, therefore it is regarded that long-term and systematic improvements are required.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.1-5
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• 2002

Drosophila Kc cells are ecdysone-responsive : hormone treatment leads rapidly to increased synthesis of several ecdysone-inducible polypeptides (EIPs) and to commitment to eventual proloferative arrest. Later the treated cells undergo morphological transformation, cease to proliferate and to grow. These responses have proven useful as models for studying ecdysone action and environmental endocrine disrupting actions. In this study, we used 20-HE to check out the Kc cells properties to the ecdysone and this properties will be applied to the environmental chemicals to find out the endocrine disrupting action in ecosystem. The cell counts of cultures harvested after 3 days' growth in the presence of 20-hydroxyecdysone. In Kc cell cultures, there were statistically significant different from control cells at 20HE 10/sup 7/-10/sup 5/. The morphological effects of all the hormones were similar, differing only in the dose level at which they were initiated.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.406-425
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• 2019

To observe the seasonal fluctuation of the meiobenthic fauna community around the coastal area of Jeju island, 20 stations were selected and seasonal surveys were conducted. Three-replicate meiobenthic samples were collected from each station in April, July, and November 2017; February, May, August, and November 2018; and February in 2019, in a total of eight months from 2017 to 2019. The total density of meiobenthos at each station ranged from 733 to 2,505 ind. 10 cm^-2. The month in which the highest habitat density appeared in most stations was April 2017 and the month in which the lowest habitat density was seen was February 2019. Nematodes were the most dominant faunal group among the representative 13 meiofaunal groups at all stations. The subdominant groups were benthic harpacticoid copepods and nauplius. The nematode/copepod (N/C) ratio, reflecting the health indices within the ecosystem, varied from 0.02 to 87.40 over the entire season and the average station values ranged from 2.00 to 16.80. The lowest N/C ratio value was found in April 2017 (0.02) and the highest N/C ratio was found at Station 11 in February 2019, which was 87.40, indicating the highest level of pollution. Seasonal and regional meiobenthos community structure similarity was divided into three groups through group analysis and multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis, which showed that the meiobenthos community structure was affected by seasonal variations, rather than by regional differences.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.239-250
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• 2018

This study classified the predictors affecting the life satisfaction level of married immigrant women into socio-demographic factors (age, education, personal system factors (Korean proficiency, self-rated health, depressed mood, multicultural attitude), family system factors (spouse relationship satisfaction, child relationship satisfaction, couple conversation time, decision-making status), and social factors (social support, social capital, experience of social discrimination, multicultural family support center use) based on ecosystem perspectives and comprehensively examined their effects. The data for 14,464 married immigrant women from the National Survey on Multicultural Families 2015 were analyzed through hierarchical multiple regression. The findings of this study are as follow. First, the results indicated that all ecosystem factors- that is personal, family, and social system factors-significantly affected life satisfaction level of married immigrant women and especially personal and family system factors increased the predictability on their satisfaction. Second, among all predictors, spouse relationship satisfaction was the factor most strongly associated with life satisfaction. Finally, the income variable among socio-demographic factors, depression among personal system factors, spouse relationship satisfaction among family system factors, and experience of social discrimination among social system factors all showed the strongest significant effects on the life satisfaction level of married immigrant women. These results suggest that comprehensive factors based on the ecosystem perspectives to intervene and promote the life satisfaction of married immigrant women should be considered.