• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.556-570
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• 2021

This study presents the data analysis results of groundwater chemistry and the occurrence of fluoride in groundwater obtained from the groundwater quality monitoring network of Korea. The groundwater data were collected from the National Groundwater Information Center and censored for erratic values and charge balance (±10%). From the geochemical graphs and various ionic ratios, it was observed that the Ca-HCO₃ type was predominant in Korean groundwater. In addition, water-rock interaction was identified as a key chemical process controlling groundwater chemistry, while precipitation and evaporation were found to be less important. According to a non-parametric trend test, at p=0.05, the concentration of fluoride in groundwater did not increase significantly and only 4.3% of the total groundwater exceeded the Korean drinking water standard of 1.5 mg/L. However, student t-tests revealed that the fluoride concentrations were closely associated with the lithologies of tuff, granite porphyry, and metamorphic rocks showing distinctively high levels. This study enhances our understanding of groundwater chemical composition and major controlling factors of fluoride occurrence and distribution in Korean groundwater.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1-7
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• 2013

Groundwater development and use have been increasing in Korea causing frequent occurrences of related hazards such as groundwater level decline, land subsidence, and groundwater contamination. To tackle these groundwater problems, central and local governments have set-up and maintained many groundwater monitoring programs such as the National Groundwater Monitoring Network and the Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network, which collect very valuable data on the overall status of domestic groundwater to aid proper groundwater management. However, several problems mainly related to the remediation of contaminated groundwater remain unresolved. Recently, there have been some incidents related to the contamination of groundwater, and these have drawn the concern of the Korean people. Although groundwater contamination has been investigated in detail, actual groundwater remediation work has not yet been implemented. The remediation of the contaminated groundwater must begin immediately in order to sustain the eco-system service of clean groundwater and enhance the welfare of the Korean people.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.112-120
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• 2015

Statistical trend analysis using the data from the National Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network (NGQMN) of Korea was conducted to establish a new groundwater quality management framework. Sen’s test, a non-parametric statistical method for trend analysis, was used to determine the linear trend of the groundwater quality data. The analysis was conducted at different confidence levels (i.e., at 70, 80, 90, 95, and 99% confidence levels) for three of groundwater quality parameters, i.e., nitrate-nitrogen, chloride, and pH, which have sufficient time series of the NGQMN data between 2007 and 2013. The results showed that different trends can be determined for different depths even for the same monitoring site and the numbers of wells having significant trends vary with different confidence levels. The wells with increasing or decreasing trends were far less than the wells with no trend. Chloride had more wells with increasing trend than other parameters. On the other hand, nitrate-nitrogen had the most wells with increasing trend and concentration exceeding 75% of the threshold values (TVs). Based on the methodology used for this study, we suggest including groundwater TVs and trend analysis to evaluate groundwater quality and to establish an advanced groundwater quality management framework.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.19-26
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• 2013

This study developed the classification of National Soil Quality Monitoring Network (NSQM) and its site selection criteria to meet the recently established purposes of the NSQM. The NSQM were suggested by this study to classify into the six-purposes site groups from the current classification of land uses. The six purposes site groups were 1) intensive observation sites, 2) contaminant loading sites, 3) human activity sites, 4) background sites, 5) river soil sites, and 6) sites near the groundwater quality monitoring wells. Furthermore, this study developed the site selection criteria of NSQM utilizing the accumulated NSQM data, road traffic data, chemical emission data, census, soil information, and the literature related to soil quality variation due to contaminant loads. For selecting suitable sites for NSQM, this study used road traffic, chemical emission, the distance from the contaminant sources, and population information as specific criteria. The suggested site classification and criteria were appled for the current 100 NSQM sites for evaluation. Forty sites were met to the criteria suggested by this study, but sixty sites were not met to the criteria. However, some of the sixty sites also included the obscure sites that their addresses were not apparent to find them.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.38-47
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• 2011

Groundwater monitoring data from the National Groundwater Monitoring Stations, a total of 320 stations, were analyzed to identify the response of water level and quality to the Odaesan earthquake (M4.9) occurred in January 2007. Among the total of eight stations responded to the earthquake, five wells showed water-level decline, and in three wells, water level rose. In terms of recovery, water levels in four stations had recovered to the original level in five days, but not in the rest four wells. The magnitude of water-level change shows weak relations to the distance between the earthquake epicenter and the groundwater monitoring station. However, the relations to the transmissivities of monitored aquifer in the station with the groundwater change were not significant. To implement the earthquake monitoring system through the groundwater monitoring network, we still need to accumulate the long-term monitoring data and geostatistically analyze those with hydrogeological and tectonic factors.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.39-54
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• 2020

This study analyzed the groundwater quality according to the depth and geological features in Gyeongsangnam-do area using groundwater quality monitoring network data to grasp the groundwater quality characteristics and to provide basic data for policy making on efficient groundwater management. Five hundred and three data sets were acquired from background water quality exclusive monitoring network in soil groundwater information system for five years (2013 ~ 2017). Except for the total coliforms and tracer items such as mercury, phenol, and others, the parameters of water quality were significant or very significant, depending on depth and geological features. As the depth got deeper, the average value of pH and electrical conductivity increased; water temperature, dissolved oxygen, oxide reduction potential, arsenic, total coliforms, and turbidity decreased; and total unfit rate for drinking water standards was lower. It was found that the sum of the positive and negative ions was the highest in the clastic sedimentary rock and the lowest in metamorphic rock. The total unfit rate for drinking water standards was the highest for metamorphic rocks, followed by clastic sedimentary rock and unconsolidated sediments and, finally, intrusive igneous rock with the lowest penetration. The Na-Cl water type, which indicated the possibility of contamination by external pollutants, appeared only at some points in shallow depths and in clastic sedimentary rocks.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.685-694
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• 1998

Protection of groundwater resources from contamination has been of increasing concern throughout the past decades. In practice, however, groundwater monitoring is performed based on the experience and intuition of experts or on the convenience. In dealing with groundwater contamination, we need to know what contaminants have the potential to threat the water quality and the distribution and concentration of the plumes. Monitoring of the subsurface environment through remote geophysical techniques or direct sampling from wells can provide such information. Once known, the plume can be properly managed. Evaluation of existing methodologies for groundwater monitoring network design revealed that one should select an appropriate design method based on the purpose of the network and the availability of field information. Integer programming approach, one of the general purpose network design tools, and a cost to-go function evaluation approach for special purpose network design were tested for field applicability. For the sam contaminated aquifer, two approaches resulted in different well locations. The amount of information, however, was about the same.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.1957-1963
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• 2017

This paper has proposed a new-type groundwater auto-monitoring system based on Multi-Sensor Device. The system adopted Multi-Sensor Device as host computer of data acquisition, used Windows Mobile which was prevalent operation system of Multi-Sensor Device. It adopted serial port CAN and RS485 as the communication interface between goundwater sensor Device and monitor host machine and utilized serial-linked multi-sensor design to measure effectively according to the depth of groundwater. We present a design for a groundwater monitoring system based on a network of wirelessly linked sensors. The proposed solution will enable groundwater researchers and decision makers to have quick access to the groundwater data with less effort and cost. Though our design is initially meant for groundwater monitoring, it can be easily adapted to other fields of environmental monitoring.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.67-79
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• 2016

Gaussian process regression (GPR) is proposed as a tool of long-term groundwater quality predictions. The major advantage of GPR is that both prediction and the prediction related uncertainty are provided simultaneously. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed tool, GPR and a conventional non-parametric trend analysis tool are comparatively applied to synthetic examples. From the application, it has been found that GPR shows better performance compared to the conventional method, especially when the groundwater quality data shows typical non-linear trend. The GPR model is further employed to the long-term groundwater quality predictions based on the data from two domestically operated groundwater monitoring stations. From the applications, it has been shown that the model can make reasonable predictions for the majority of the linear trend cases with a few exceptions of severely non-Gaussian data. Furthermore, for the data shows non-linear trend, GPR with mean of second order equation is successfully applied.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.67-76
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• 2020

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are organic compounds that tend to persist in environmental media for a long period of time. This work presents a 2-year monitoring study of occurrence of three PAHs (benzo(a)pyrene, naphthalene, and fluoranthene) in groundwater. The groundwater samples were collected from 106 sites of nation's groundwater quality monitoring network and analyzed by simultaneous analysis method to quantify the concentrations of the PAHs. Benzo(a)pyrene was not detected in all samples. Naphthalene and fluoranthene concentrations ranged from not detected to 12.8 ng/L and not detected to 10.5 ng/L with their detection frequency being 57.8 and 4.2%, respectively. The concentrations of PAHs in ground- and drinking waters are not currently regulated in Korea, but the concentration levels of naphthalene and fluoranthene found in this work were lower than the regulatory limits of other countries (naphthalene 0.001~0.07 mg/L, fluoranthene 0.001~1.4 mg/L). The monitoring result of this study revealed that PAHs exist as trace amounts in domestic groundwater, however continuos monitoring is necessary to protect groundwater from PAHs contamination with growing industrialization and urbanization.