• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2004.09a
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• pp.164-167
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• 2004

To investigate the chemical and microbiological characteristics of groundwater and surface waters in contaminated sites, hydrochemical and microbial community analysis were executed. Different indigenous bacteria were observed at 4 contaminated sites and this is considered to decompose the contaminants of groundwater. The research results showed the close relationship between hydrochemistry and microbial characteristics and those are used for the information of natural attenuation and enhanced bioremediation.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.38-48
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• 2004

Natural attenuation of petroleum hydrocarbon was investigated at an industrial complex about 45 Km away from Seoul. The three-years monitoring results indicated that the concentrations of DO, nitrate, and sulfate in the contaminated area were significantly lower than the background monitoring groundwater under the non-contaminated area. The results also showed a higher ferrous iron concentration, a lower redox potential, and a higher (neutral) pH in the contaminated groundwater, suggesting that biodegradation of TEX(Toluene, Ethylbenzene, Xylene) is the major on-going process in the contaminated area. Groundwater in the contaminated area is anaerobic, and sulfate reduction is the dominant terminal electron accepting process in the area. The total attenuation rate was about 0.0017∼0.0224day$^{-1}$ and the estimated first-order degradation rate constant(λ) was 0.0008∼0.0106day$^{-1}$ . However, the reduction of TEX concentration in the groundwater was resulted from not only biodegradation but also dilution and reaeration through recharge of uncotaminated surface and groundwater. The natural attenuation was, therefore, found to be an effective, on-going remedial process at the site.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.12-22
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• 2020

Managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is a promising water management strategy for securing stable water resources to overcome water shortage and water quality deterioration caused by global environmental changes. A MAR demonstration site was selected at Imgok-ri, Sangju-si, Korea, based on screening for the frequency of drought events and local water supply situations. The abundant groundwater discharging from a nearby abandoned coal mine is one of the potential recharge water sources for the MAR implementation. However, it has elevated levels of arsenic (~12 ㎍/L). In this study, the potential of the natural attenuation of arsenic by the field geological media was investigated using batch and column experiments. The adsorption and desorption parameters were obtained for two drill core samples (GM1; 21.8~22.8 m and GM2; 26.0~27.8 m depth) recovered from the potentially water-conducting fracture-zones in the injection well. The effluent arsenic concentrations were monitored during the continuous flow of the mine drainage water through the columns packed with the core samples. GM2 removed about 60% of arsenic in the influent (0.1 mg-As/L) while GM1 removed about 20%. The results suggest that natural attenuation is an acitive process occurring during the MAR operation, potentially lowering the arsenic level in the mine drainage water below the regulatory standard for drinking water. This study hence demonstrates that using the mine drainage water as the recharge water source is a viable option at the MAR demonstration site.

• Proceedings of the Korean Environmental Health Society Conference
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• 2002.04a
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• pp.9-12
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• 2002

Diffusive transport of volatile organic compounds(VOCs) and their degradation by bacteria in unsaturated soils are couple by poorly understood mass transfer kinetics at the gas/water interface. Determination of the fate of VOCs in unsaturated soil is necessary to evaluate the feasibility of natural attenuation as a VOC remediation strategy. The objective of this study was to develop a mechanistically based mathematical model that would consider the interdependence of VOC transport, microbial activity, and sorptive interaction in a moist, unsaturated soil. Because the focus of the model was on description of natural attenuation, the advective VOC transport that is induced in engineered remediation processes such as vapor extraction was not considered. The utility of the model was assessed through its ability to describe experimental observations form diffusion experiments using toluene as a representative VOC in well-defined soil columns that contained a toluene degrading bacterium, Pseudomonas Putida, as the sole active microbial species. The coefficient for gas-liquid mass-transfer, K$\sub$LA/, was found to be a key parameter controlling the ability of bacteria to degrade VOCs. This finding indicates that soil size and geometry are likely to be important parameters in assessing the possible success of natural attenuation of VOCs in contaminated unsaturated soils.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.48-51
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• 1999

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2024

Recently, enhanced in situ bioremediation using slow substrate release techniques has been actively researched for managing TCE-contaminated groundwater. This study conducted a lab-scale batch reactor experiment to evaluate the feasibility of natural attenuation for TCE dechlorination using microsized corn-oil droplet (MOD) as an activator considering the following three factors: 1) TCE dechlorination in the presence or absence of MOD; 2) TCE dechlorination in the presence or absence of inactivator of native microbial activity; and 3) MOD concentration effects on TCE dechlorination. Batch reactors were constructed using site groundwater and soil in which Dehalococcoides bacteria were present. Without MOD, TCE was decomposed into dichloroethylene (DCE). However, other by-products of TCE dechlorination were not detected. With MOD, DCE, vinyl chloride (VC), and ethylene (ETH) were sequentially observed. This result confirmed that MOD effectively supplied electrons to complete dechlorination of TCE to ETH. However, when an excess of MOD was provided, it formed unfavorable conditions for anaerobic digestion because dechlorination reaction did not proceed while propionic acid was accumulated after DCE was generated. Therefore, if an appropriate amount of MOD is supplied, MOD can be effectively used as a natural reduction activator to promote biodegradation in an aquifer contaminated by TCE.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.114-116
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• 2005

Natural attenuation has been actively studied and often selected as final clean-up process in remediation of contaminated ground-water and soil for the last decade. Accordingly, understanding of natural processes affecting the fate and transport of contaminants in the subsurface becomes important for a success of implementation of the natural remediation strategy, Contaminant advection and diffusion processes in the unsaturated zone are naturally related to environmental changes in the atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure changes affecting the transport of contaminants in the subsurface are investigated in this study. Moisture content, trichloroethylene (TCE) concentration, temperature, and pressure variations in the subsurface were measured for the July, August, November, and December 2001 at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey. These data were used for a one-phase flow and one-component transport model in simulating the soil-gas flow and accordingly the TCE transport in the subsurface in accordance with the atmosphere pressure variations at the surface. The soil-gas velocities during the sampling periods varied with a magnitude of $10^{-6}\;to\;10^{-7}\;m\;s^{-1}$ at land surface. The TCE advection fluxes at land surface were several orders of magnitude smaller than the TCE diffusion fluxes. A sensitivy analysis indicated that advection fluxes were more sensitive to changes in geo-environmental conditions compared to diffusion fluxes. Of all the parameters investigated in this study, moisture content has the most significant effect on TCE advection and diffusion fluxes.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.84-93
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• 2016

As a transition region between ocean and land, coastal wetlands are significant ecosystems that maintain water quality, provide natural habitat for a variety of species, and slow down erosion. The energy of coastal waves and storm surges are reduced by vegetation cover, which also helps to maintain wetlands through increased sediment deposition. Wave attenuation by vegetation is a highly dynamic process and its quantification is important for understanding shore protection and modeling coastal hydrodynamics. In this study, laboratory experiments were used to quantify wave attenuation as a function of vegetation type as well as wave conditions. Wave attenuation characteristics were investigated under regular waves for rigid model vegetation. Laboratory hydraulic test and numerical analysis were conducted to investigate regular wave attenuation through emergent vegetation with wave steepness ak and relative water depth kh. The normalized wave attenuation was analyzed to the decay equation of Dalrymple et al.(1984) to determine the vegetation transmission coefficients, damping factor and drag coefficients. It was found that drag coefficient was better correlated to Keulegan-Carpenter number than Reynolds number and that the damping increased as wave steepness increased.

• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.79-87
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• 2013

An unstable yet efficient phenanthrene-degrading bacterium strain Ph-3 was isolated from a petroleum-contaminated site at the Mathura Oil Refinery, India. The strain was identified as Pseudomonas sp. using a polyphasic approach. An analysis of the intermediates and assays of the degradative enzymes from a crude extract of phenanthrene-grown cells showed a novel and previously unreported pattern of 1, 2-dihydroxy naphthalene and salicylic acid production. While strain Ph-3 lost its phenanthrene- degrading potential during successive transfers on a rich medium, it maintained this trait in oligotrophic soil conditions under the stress of the pollutant and degraded phenanthrene efficiently in soil microcosms. Although the maintenance and in vitro study of unstable phenotypes are difficult and such strains are often missed during isolation, purification, and screening, these bacteria constitute a substantial fraction of the microbial community at contaminated sites and play an important role in pollutant degradation during biostimulation or monitored natural attenuation.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.52-56
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• 2002

The study was carried out to evaluate the characteristics of biodegradation by Pseudomonas putida G7 in soil column. The reactor system was used to investigate mass transfer of VOCs as Toluene in a column of unsaturated soil. Determination of the fate of VOCs in unsaturated soil is necessary to evaluate the feasibility of natural attenuation as a VOCs remediation strategy. The objective of this study was to develop a mechanistically based mathematical model that would consider the interdependence of VOC transport, microbial activity, and sorptive interactions in a moist, unsaturated soil. Because the focus of the model was on description of natural attenuation, the advective VOCs transport that is induced in engineered remediation processes such as vapor extraction was not considered. It can be concluded that the coefficient for gas liquid mass-transfer was found to be a key parameter controlling the ability of bacteria to VOCs. Finally, it appeared that bioremediation technology of VOCs which are difficult to be decomposed by chemical methods.