• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Environment and Ecology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.105-126
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• 2003

In Korea most of annual rainfall is concentrated in several episodic heavy rains during the season of summer monsoon and typhoon. Because of uneven rainfall distribution many dams have been constructed in order to secure water supply in dry seasons. The Han River system has the most dams among Korean rivers, and the river is a series of dams now. Reservoirs need different strategy of water quality control from river water. Autochthonous organic matter and phosphorus should be the major target to be controlled in lakes. In this Paper some problems are discussed that makes efforts of water quality improvement ineffective in lakes of Korea, even after the substantial investment to wastewater treatment facilities.1) Phosphorus is the key factor controlling eutrophication of lakes and the reduction ofphosphors should be the major target of water treatment. However, water quality management strategy in Korea is still stream-oriented, and focused on BOD removal from sewage. Phosphorus removal efficiency remains as low as 10-30%, because biological treatment is adopted for both secondary treatment and advanced treatment. The standard for TP concentration of the sewage treatment plant effluent is 6 mgP/l in most of regions, and 2 mg/l in enforced region near metropolitan water intake point. TP in the effluents of sewage treatment plants are usually 1-2 mg/1, and most of plants meet the effluent regulation without a further phosphorus removal process. The generous TP standard for effluents discourages further efforts to improve phosphorus removal efficiency of sewage treatment. Considering that TP standard for the effluent is below 0.1 mg/l in some countries, it should be amended to below 0.1 mg/l in Korea, especially in the watershed of large lakes.2) Urban runoff and combined sewer overflow are not treated, even though their total loading into lakes can be comparable to municipal sewage discharges on dry days. Chemical coagulation and rapid settling might be the solution to urban runoff in regard of intermittent operation on only rainy days.3) Aggregated precipitation in Korea that is concentrated on several episodic heavyrains per year causes a large amount of nonpoint source pollution loading into lakes. It makes the treatment of nonpoint source discharge by methods of other countries of even rain pattern, such as retention pond or artificial wetland, impractical in Korea.4) The application rate of fertilizers in Korea is ten times as high as the average ofOECD countries. The total manure discharge from animal farming is thought to be over the capacity of soil treatment in Korea. Even though large portion of manure is composted for organic fertilizer, a lot of nutrients and organic matter emanates from organic compost. The reduction of application rate and discharge rate of phosphorus from agricultural fields should be encouraged by incentives and regulations.5) There is a lot of vegetable fields with high slopes in the upstream region of the HanRiver. Soil erosion is severe due to high slopes, and fertilizer is discharged in the form of adsorbed phosphorus on clay surface. The reduction of soil erosion in the upland area should be the major preventive policy for eutrophication. Uplands of high slope must be recovered to forest, and eroded gullies should be reformed into grass-buffered natural streams which are wider and resistant to bank erosion.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2004

Temperature-phased anaerobic digestion (TPAD), anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR), and co-digestion technologies were combined together in order to overcome low efficiencies of conventional anaerobic sewage sludge digestion processes. In the performance, TPAD-ASBR process showed high VS removal efficiency over 60% up to the organic loading rate (OLR) of 2.7 g VS/L/d. The first-stage of TPAD-ASBR and control system played a most significant role in VS destruction and methane production. Methane production rate (0.79 l $CH_4/L/d$) of the system was higher than that (0.59 l $CH_4/L/d$) of the control system. The substrate characteristics of the sewage sludge, such as low VS concentration (1.5%, w/w) and biodegradability, were properly improved by the addition of food waste as a co-substrate, leading to more efficient VS removal and methane production. With several track studies, it was revealed that the independent solid retention time (SRT) of those systems prevented untreated particles from outflowing and also, extended the retention time of the active biomass for further degradation. Consequently, it was confirmed that the sequencing batch operation of the TPAD process using co-substrate was a promising alternative for the recycling of sewage sludge with low VS content.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.513-524
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• 1996

Laboratory investigation was conducted to evaluat the mixing effects on organic removal efficiency to treat low-strength synthetic wastewater using modified anaerobic - filter reactor combining anaerobic filter and upflow anaerobic sludge blanket. Using the modified process the low-strength wastewater like municipal sewage could be treated with 85% T-COD removal efficiency at hydraulic retention time of 6 hours. At the constant organic loading of 0.5 kg COD/m 3-day, the organic removal efficiency and effluent COD concentration are increased as influent COD concentration increased from 125 mg/l to 500 mg/l. Mixing effects on organic removal efficiency are evident and optimum mixing speed is found as 50RPM. Placing the granular sludge and media on which slime layer was pre-formed into the reactor seemed to be very effective In achieving short start-up period. Therefore, the steady state was achived after 4 weeks and 1 week based on T-COD and S-COD, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.44-53
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• 2011

Membrane bio-reactor (MBR) has several advantages over the conventional activated sludge process, including a high biomass, low sludge production, and better permeate quality. Therefore, the MBR have gained popularity for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment. However the MBR usually were used for sewage and low streng th wastewater treatment because of membrane fouling problem and limitation of oxygen transfer into biomass. In this study, the hybrid process combining MBR and pure oxygen was tested for high strength organic wastewater treatment in the COD loading range from 2 to $10kgCOD/m^3{\cdot}day$. The hybrid process, membrane coupled pure oxygen high compact reactor (MPHCR), had been operated for one year and operation parameters, the effect of COD loading, MLSS concentration and the location of membrane module were studied for membrane fouling characteristic. Also membrane resistance test and the component of foulant was analyzed to investigate what is specific foulant in the MBR.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2015

As the seriousness of water pollution resulted from nitrogen is being magnified, research has been conducted to reduce nitrogen in sewage as well as wastewater. Particularly research on innovative nitrogen removal methods that are based on the reaction of nitritation and are economically feasible and eco-friendly has been receiving attention. However, research on the applicability and efficiency of the methods based on the reaction of nitritation has not been completely done yet. Accordingly, the current study has analyzed the characteristics of sewage flowing into municipal wastewater treatment plants, primary clarifier supernatant, recycled water, and livestock wastewater and also operated a laboratory-level reactor. The result shows that recycled water and livestock wastewater contain higher-concentration nitrogen than other kinds of sewage, so they increase nitrogen loading in the water treatment line. And the result of operating a reactor shows that because of ammonium nitrogen low concentration, sewage and primary clarifier supernatant do not induce the reaction of nitritation. Also, there exist differences in the conditions of retention time inducing the reaction of nitritation by the types of sewage, and this seems to be attributed to organic compound and ammonium nitrogen concentration. Among the kinds of sewage inducing the reaction of nitritation, anaerobic digester supernatant indicates the highest efficiency.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2021

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) can be classified as a type of self-immobilized microbial aggregates measuring more than 0.2 mm. It offers the option to simultaneously remove COD, N, and P that occur in different zones inside a granule. Also, AGS is characterized by high precipitability, treatability with high organic loading, and high tolerance to low temperature. In this study, a sequencing batch reactor inoculated with AGS (AGS-SBR) is a new advanced wastewater treatment process that was proven to grow AGS with integrated nutrient removal and low C/N ratio. A pilot plant, AGS-SBR with a capacity of 225 ㎥/d was installed at an S sewage treatment plant in Gyeonggi-do. The results of the operation showed that the water quality of the effluent indicated that the value of BOD5 was 1.5 mg/L, CODMn was 11.4 mg/L, SS was 6.2 mg/L, T-N was 13.2 mg/L, and T-P was 0.197 mg/L, and all of these values reliably satisfied an effluent standard (I Area). In winter, the T-N treatment efficiency at a lower temperature of less than 11℃ also showed reliability to meet the effluent standard of the I Area (20 mg/L or less). Analysis of microbial community in AGS showed a higher preponderance of beneficial microorganisms involved in denitrification and phosphorus accumulation compared with activated sludge. The power consumption and sludge disposal cost were reduced by 34.7% and 54.9%, respectively, compared to the domestic SBR type sewage treatment plant with a processing capacity of 1,000 ㎥/d or less.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.93-102
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• 2005

A prototype surface flow constructed wetland was built in the upstream area of Sihwa reclaimed tidal lands to improve the water quality of Lake Sihwa by treating severely polluted stream water. In this study, we monitored hydrology, macrophyte (Phragmites communis Trin,) growth, and water quality in the Banwol and Donghwa wetlands to evaluate their performance during the initial period after the completion of wetland construction, The average removal efficiency($\%$) in each wetland was relatively low compared with the performance data from the North America Wetland Treatment System Database (NADB), which mainly includes urban sewage-treatment wetlands. However, the average removal rates per unit area ($g/m^{2}/day$) were 0.72, 0.72 and 0.51 (BOD), 2,04, 2.46 and 0.70 (SS), 0.89, 0.43 and 1.09 (TN) and 0.02, 0.02 and 0.02 (TP) in the Banwol and Donghwa wetlands and NADB, respectively. The overall performance of the Banwol and Donghwa wetlands was within the expected range of the wetland system processes contributing the reduction of the pollutant load to Lake Sihwa during the initial period of wetland operation. Considering the low influent concentration, high hydraulic loading rate, and insufficient macrophyte growth since the wetland was constructed, better performance is expected if an improved operational scheme is adopted.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.1179-1193
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• 2018

The purpose of this study at water quality pollutants to propose proper management method for the Osu-A unit watershed which is the influent tributary located upstream of the Sumjin -river among the 13 unit watersheds in the Sumjin-river water system. Analyzed the correlation between flow-pollution loading and the correlation between land use type, BOD and TP items, and analyzed 8-day intervals Cumulative Flow Duration Curve (CFDC) and Load Duration Curve (LDC) to evaluate water quality damage. As a result, both BOD and TP were larger than 1 and the concentration of water pollutants increased with increasing flow. BOD was positively correlated with Urban and Field, and TP was positively correlated with Field with 0.710. As a result of the LDC, BOD was analyzed that the target water quality was achieved with the excess rate of less than 50%, and TP exceeded the target water quality by 50.1%. BOD usually exceeded the standard value (exceedance probability 50%) at low flow zone and On the other hand, TP usually exceeded the standard value at high flow zone. Monthly BOD (April to June) and TP (May to August) exceeded the standard. Sewage Wastewater treatment and non-point pollution control is Osu-A unit watersheds are effective in improving BOD and TP.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2006

In this study, nitrogen removal characteristics of SBR3 process, which is two-sludge system of sequencing batch reactor(SBR) type, were investigated, with comparison of those of SBR1 process, which is conventional SBR process, and SBR2 process, which was designed to enhance denitrification efficiency through step-feeding of wastewater, using domestic wastewater. SBR3 process of two-sludge type can perform external nitrification, on which nitrification occurs in separated reactor, and enhanced denitrification using biosorbed organics. In the results with domestic wastewater, T-N removal efficiency of SBR3 process was better than those of SBR1 and SBR2 processes. It was observed that bigger difference of T-N removal efficiency between SBR3 process and SBR1 & SBR2 processes was showed at low C/N ratio than that at high C/N ratio resulting from more efficient use of organics by biosorption mechanism in denitrification of SBR3 process than those of SBR1 and SBR2 processes. In addition, T-N removal efficiency of SBR3 process according to influent T-N loading rate was better than those of SBR1 and SBR2, even though influent T-N loading rate of SBR3 process was higher than that of SBR1 and SBR2 process resulting from operation of SBR3 process in short hydraulic retention time(HRT) by external nitrification.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.398-405
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• 2012

PAHs(Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) in coastal area and estuary adjacent to urban area and industrial activities region are mainly introduced into marine environment via atmosphere and river. This study which is evaluated the distribution characteristics of PAHs discharge from rivers and sewage disposal water which flowing into Ulsan bay, and were carried out in Jun of dry season and in Auguest of wet season, 2008. The water samples from eight main rivers and Youngyeon WWTP(Wastewater Treatment Plant) flowed into Ulsan bay were taken for analysis of dissolved PAHs. The range and mean values of dissolved PAHs concentrations showed 10.30 to 87.88 ng/L, its mean 36.94 ng/L in dry season and 10.30 to 69.57 ng/L, its mean 24.37 ng/L in wet season. The distribution of dissolved PAHs showd the high concentrations in the Gungcheoncheon which is flowed from urban and industrial area. The ranges and means values of the loading fluxes were estimated with 0.04 to 8.27 g/day, its mean 2.05 g/day in dry season, and 0.03 to 4.77 g/day, its mean 1.61 g/day, in wet season. The loading flux showed the highest value in Taewha river due to the high flow rate and the urban activity. The composition patterns of dissolved PAHs compound showed most of the trend occupying low molecuar weight PAHs than high molecular weight PAHs. These results were due to physical and chemical characteristics of PAHs compound, and were similar to those of other studies. The concentrations of dissolved PAHs in this study are lower than those of other studies, and the level of PAHs pollution appeared to be not serious in reverine waters of Ulsan coast.