• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.221-230
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• 2016

Multi-functional floating wetland island (mFWI) was developed in order to prevent algal bloom and to improve water quality through several unit purification processes. A test bed was applied in the stagnant watershed in an urban area, from the summer to the winter season. For the advanced treatment, an artificial phosphorus adsorption/filtration medium was applied with micro-bubble generation, as well as water plants for nutrient removal. It appeared that the efficiency of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total phosphorus (T-P) removal was higher in the warmer season (40.9%, 45.7%) than in the winter (15.9%, 20.0%), and the removal performance (suspended solid, chlorophyll a) in each process differs according to seasonal variation; micro-bubble performed better (33.1%, 39.2%) in the summer, and the P adsorption/filtration and water plants performed better (76.5%, 59.5%) in the winter season. From the results, it was understood that the mFWI performance was dependent upon the pollutant loads in different seasons and unit processes, and thus it requires continuous monitoring under various conditions to evaluate the functions. In addition, micro-bubbles helped prevent the formation of anaerobic zones in the lower part of the floating wetland. This resulted in the water circulation to form a new healthy aquatic ecosystem in the surrounding environment, which confirmed the positive influence of mFWI.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.359-369
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• 2015

Stream ecosystems are highly valued natural resources, however, stream environments are currently under threat in several respects. We evaluated vegetation and ecological characteristics according to different revetment types. The distribution of vegetation differed with revetment type, with a 42~45 taxa found in natural revetments, and 23~38 taxa in vertical revetments. Thus, natural revetments host more diverse vegetation than vertical revetments. We also found more plants belonging to the families Labiatae and Cyperaceae growing in natural revetments than in vertical revetments. We proposed that habitat space be apportioned to introduce annual plants as part of stream restoration projects. And, we identified 7 families and 18 taxa of naturalized plants, majority taxa were either biennial or perennial. Moreover, naturalized ratio was higher in vertical(14.3%) than natural(12.1%), we proposed a plan to promote and improve natural streams and revetments. Furthermore, we applied a waterfront evaluation method developed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the USDA-NRCS, which confirmed that stream health can be improved in most regions by controlling naturalized plants and ensuring shrub and tree growth. We adopted a new method to remove naturalized plants and establish natural revetments to ensure shrub and tree growth to aid in small-stream restoration and improvement. In future studies, we hope to develop methods for small-stream restoration projects in rural areas.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.321-327
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• 2006

In Korea, there is a growing competitive for water resources between industrial, domestic and agricultural consumer, and the environment as many other OECD countries. The demand on water use is also affecting aquatic ecosystems particularly where withdrawals are in excess of minimum environmental needs for rivers, lakes and wetland habits. OECD developed three indicators related to water use by the agriculture in above contexts : the first is a water use intensity indicator, which is expressed as the quantity or share of agricultural water use in total national water utilization; the second is a water stress indicator, which is expressed as the proportion of rivers (in length) subject to diversion or regulation for irrigation without reserving a minimum of limiting reference flow; and the third is a water use efficiency indicator designated as the technical and the economic efficiency. These indicators have different meanings in the aspect of water resource conservation and sustainable water use. So, it will be more significant that the indicators should reflect the intrinsic meanings of them. The problem is that the aspect of an overall water flow in the agro-ecosystem and recycling of water use not considered in the assessment of agricultural water use needed for calculation of these water use indicators. Namely, regional or meteorological characteristics and site-specific farming practices were not considered in the calculation of these indicators. In this paper, we tried to calculate water use indicators suggested in OECD and to modify some other indicators considering our situation because water use pattern and water cycling in Korea where paddy rice farming is dominant in the monsoon region are quite different from those of semi-arid regions. In the calculation of water use intensity, we excluded the amount of water restored through the ground from the total agricultural water use because a large amount of water supplied to the farm was discharged into the stream or the ground water. The resultant water use intensity was 22.9% in 2001. As for water stress indicator, Korea has not defined nor monitored reference levels of minimum flow rate for rivers subject to diversion of water for irrigation. So, we calculated the water stress indicator in a different way from OECD method. The water stress indicator was calculated using data on the degree of water storage in agricultural water reservoirs because 87% of water for irrigation was taken from the agricultural water reservoirs. Water use technical efficiency was calculated as the reverse of the ratio of irrigation water to a standard water requirement of the paddy rice. The efficiency in 2001 was better than in 1990 and 1998. As for the economic efficiency for water use, we think that there are a lot of things to be taken into considerations to make a useful indicator to reflect socio-economic values of agricultural products resulted from the water use. Conclusively, site-specific, regional or meteorogical characteristics as in Korea were not considered in the calculation of water use indicators by methods suggested in OECD(Volume 3, 2001). So, it is needed to develop a new indicators for the indicators to be more widely applicable in the world.