• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2013

Changes of organic carbon after the entrance into dam reservoirs were investigated using water samples collected in May, September, and October in 2010 from the inflow sites and the outlets of four selected dam reservoirs-Soyang, Chungju, Chungju regulation, and Uiam. Increase of refractory dissolved organic carbon (R-DOC) was observed only for large dam reservoirs with long residence times whereas the trend was not found for relatively small reservoirs. The effects of residence times on organic carbon changes were further confirmed by significant positive correlations between monthly residence times and the relative increase of either dissolved organic carbon (DOC) or R-DOC concentrations. Comparison of spectroscopic characteristics of DOC revealed that the changes in the large reservoirs in May might result from in-lake processes. The inflow of terrestrial sources of DOM during storms appears to largely affect the DOC quality of the large reservoirs for the rest of the sampling periods. The mechanism, however, did not fully explain the behaviors of DOC for the small sized reservoirs. Our combined results suggested that both residence time and the input of allochthonous carbon sources might substantially influence the quantity of DOC as well as its quality in dam reservoirs.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.131-141
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• 2023

In this study, the relationship between organic carbon distribution characteristics and decomposition rate classified according to the particle size and biological degradation characteristics in water was investigated for the Nam river and Geumho river. The average concentrations of TOC in the Nam river and Geumho river were 2.7±1.2 mg/L and 5.0±1.2 mg/L, respectively, but the composition ratios for each type of organic carbon were similar. An average value of 80.9% of TOC was present as DOC and 72.8% of DOC consisted of Refractory-DOC (RDOC). In addition, the change in the RDOC composition ratio according to temporal and spatial distribution was the smallest. There was no difference in the decomposition rate of organic carbon except for TOC by the site (p≥0.108, one-way ANOVA), and the decomposition rates of Labile-POC (LPOC) and LDOC were similar at 0.139±0.102 and 0.137±0.149 day^-1, respectively (p=0.110, paired t-test). The coefficient of variation (CV) of the decomposition rate of DOC (average 8.1%), which had the smallest composition ratio of organic carbon, was 1.1, showing the largest temporal variation. The TOC, POC, and DOC decomposition rates showed a significant correlation with the ratio of the initial concentration to the concentration after 25 days of decomposition (OC₂₅/OC₀) (r²=0.89~0.94, p<0.001), and the decomposition rates of LPOC and LDOC were significantly correlated with the ratio of the initial concentration to the concentration after 5 days of decomposition (LOC₅/LOC₀) (r²=0.67~0.75). This suggests that it is possible to estimate the decomposition rate through the concentration of each type of organic carbon.