• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.155-165
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• 2021

Objectives: Acute exposure to high concentrations of chemicals can occur when a chemical accident takes place. As such exposure can cause ongoing environmental pollution, such as in the soil and groundwater, there is a need for a tool that can assess health effects in the long term. The purpose of this study was assessing the health risks of residents living near a chemical accident site due to long-term exposure while considering the temporal concentration changes of the toxic chemicals leaked during the accident until their extinction in the environment using a multimedia environmental dynamics model. Methods: A health risk assessment was conducted on three cases of formaldehyde chemical accidents. In this study, health risk assessment was performed using a multimedia environmental dynamics model that considers the behavior of the atmosphere, soil, and water. In addition, the extinction period of formaldehyde in the environment was regarded as extinction in the environment when the concentration in the air and soil fell below the background concentration prior to the accident. The subjects of health risk assessment were classified into four groups according to age: 0-9 years old, 10-18 years old, 19-64 years old, and over 65 years old. Carcinogenic risk assessment by respiratory exposure and non-carcinogenic risk assessment by soil intake were conducted as well. Results: In the assessment of carcinogenic risk due to respiratory exposure, the excess carcinogenic risk did not exceed 1.0×10-6 in all three chemical accidents, so there was no health effect due to the formaldehyde chemical accident. As a result of the evaluation of non-carcinogenic risk due to soil intake, none of the three chemical accidents had a risk index of 1, so there was no health effect. For all three chemical accidents, the excess cancer risk and hazard index were the highest in the age group 0-9. Next, 10-18 years old, 65 years old or older, and 19-64 years old showed the highest risk. Conclusion: This study considers environmental changes after a chemical accident occurs and until the substance disappears from the environment. It also conducts a health risk assessment by reflecting the characteristics of the long-term persistence and concentration change over time. It is thought that it is of significance as a health risk assessment study reflecting the exposure characteristics of the accident substance for an actual chemical accident.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.167-174
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• 2004

Several metalliferous and coal mines, including Myungjin, Seojin and Okdong located at the upper watershed of Okdong stream, were abandoned or closed since 1988 due to the mining industry promotion policy and thus disposed an enormous amount of mining wastes without a proper treatment facilities, resulting in water pollution in the downstream areas. AMD and waste effluents from the closed coal mines were very strongly acidic showing pH ranges of 2.7 to 4.5 and had a high level of total dissolved solid (TDS) showing the ranges of 1,030 to 1,947 mg/L. Also heavy metal concentrations in these samples such as Fe, Cu, Cd and anion such as sulfate were very high. These parameters of AMD and effluents were considered to be highly polluted as compared to those in the main stream area of the Okdong river and be major pollutants for water and soil in tile downstream area. Pollution indices of the surface water at the upper stream of Okdong river where AMD of the abandoned coal mines was flowed into main stream were in the ranges of 16.3 to 47.1. On the other hand, those at the mid stream where effluents from tailing dams and coal mines flowed into main stream were in tile ranges of 10.6 to 19.5. However, those at the lower stream were ranged from 10.6 to 14.9 These results indicated that mining wastes such as AMD and effluents from the closed mines were tile major source to water pollution at the Okdong stream areas.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.29-36
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• 2010

Several mines including Namil, Solim and Jungbong which are located in the Gyeonggi and Kangwon province have been abandoned and closed since 1980 due to "The promotion policy of mining industry". An enormous amount of mining wastes was disposed without proper treatment, which caused soil pollution in tailing dam and ore-dressing plant areas. However, any quantitative assessment was not performed about soil and water pollution by transporting mining wastes such as acid mine drainage, mine tailing, and rocky waste. In this research, heavy metals in mining wastes were analyzed according to leaching method which used 0.1 N HCl and total solution method which used Aqua-regia to recognize the ecological effect of distance from hot spot. We sampled tailings, rocky wastes and soils around the abandoned mine. Chemical and physical parameters such as pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total organic carbon (TOC), soil texture and heavy metal concentration were analyzed. The range of soil's pH is between 4.3 and 6.4 in the tailing dam and oredressing plant area due to mining activity. Total concentrations of As, Cu, and Pb in soil near ore dressing plant area are 250.9, 249.3 and 117.2 mg/kg respectively, which are higher than any other ones near tailing dam area. Arsenic concentration in tailing dams is 31.0 mg/kg, which is also considered as heavily polluted condition comparing with the remediation required level(RRL) in "Soil environment conservation Act".

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.559-564
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• 2011

Soil microbial functions are considered to be effective in assessing the severity of heavy metal pollution. Therefore, this study was carried out to examine the effect of heavy metals on nitrogen mineralization by measuring the releasing pattern of inorganic nitrogen ($NH_4^+$-N and $NO_3^-$-N) in a soil treated with heavy metals. A factorial combination of two heavy metals (Zn and Cd) treated with three concentrations (50, 100 and $150{\mu}mol\;g^{-1}$ soils) was used in a laboratory incubation. Nitrogen mineralization was determined at 3, 7, 14, 21, 28, 42 and 56 days after the treatments replicated four times. Soil sample free from heavy metals was served as the control. The amount of nitrogen mineralization from heavy metal treated soils was found to be decreased at an increasing rate during the first 21 days of incubation. However, as the incubation progressed, nitrogen mineralization was found to be decreased at decreasing rates. Furthermore, during this period, nitrogen mineralization in Cd treated soils was significantly lower ($P{\leq}0.05$) than that of the control. Soils treated with Cd at the concentration of $150{\mu}mol\;g^{-1}$ showed the lowest N mineralization throughout the incubation. Nitrogen mineralization in Zn treated soils ($50{\mu}mol\;g^{-1}$) was found to be higher than the other heavy metal treated soils. On the base of present findings, nitrogen mineralization of soil could be considered as a viable assessment of the degree of heavy metal pollution.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.81-91
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• 2012

In this study, it is grasped the status of nutrients through an investigation of release characteristics and physicochemical properties of sediments on reservoir. And then the effect of sediments is evaluated on the water quality in reservoir. In the results of physicochemical analysis, the pollution level of midstream is the highest, which shows the traits that the water is more deeper and takes place a deposition consistently. Then, the pollution level of upstream is higher than downstream's because inflow has influence on the upstream directly. The downstream is located near tidal gate so that the soil particles can be moved easily and are difficult to be deposited due to the distribution of seawater by control of tidal gate. Therefore, the downstream is showed the lowest pollution level than the others. Also, the concentration of SOD(Sediment Oxygen Demand) in the upstream which is influenced on the effect of inflow is highest than the others. When it analyzes under anaerobic and aerobic condition to understand the release characteristic of sediment, it shows that the release rate is low or negative under the aerobic condition. Whereas the release rate is usually positive under the unaerobic condition relatively. According to these results, it is necessary to maintain the proper environmental factors of water body for decreasing the release rate of sediment. Because the release rate is changeable under the different condition of water body. Therefore, proper strategies are required for increasing the self-purification of water as well as keeping the aerobic condition of sediment and managing a sediment layer directly to control the inner-pollution by the sediment of reservoir.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 1999

This study aims to find basic data for using the quantitative assessment of the sustainability and establishing the systematic index of the planning for local cities to consider the environmentally sound and sustainable development. The research designs to review professional responding to surveys preceded by separate questionnaires and interviews from book reviews, and suggests to make an assessment model of the sustainability for local cities. The research found consequently as follows. Firstly, the research survey items were decides totally 52, grouped 9 assessmental issues and distributed under 4 assessmental domains for the sustainability from the references of book reviews. Secondly, the research result concentrated on the followings from the professional responding to surveys. 1. A most influent factor is the distribution of animals and plants in a nature domain. The next influent factors are the ratio of mass-transportation systems, the numbers of the species of animals and plants, the acreage of conservative forestry, the numbers of reused water resources, and the usage number of water supply, orderly in the nature domain. 2. A most influent factor is the usage number of synthetic detergents in a pollution domain. The next influent factors are the volume of waste water, the number of registered vehicles, the degree of soil pollution, and the charge of development imposition, orderly in the pollution domain. 3. A most influent factor is the acreage of athletic facilities, in an urban domain. the next influent factors are the acreage of recreational facilities, the number and acreage of cultural assets, the number of cultural facilities, the acreage of landscape conservation area, the charge of cultural asset management, orderly in the urban domain. 4. A most influent factor is the number of waste disposal facilities in a participation domain. The next influent factors are the capacity of reused waste, the usage of synthetic detergents, the ratio of waste water disposal, orderly in the participation domain. 5. A most contributed influent domain to the assessment of the sustainability for local cities is the urban domain. The next influent domains are nature domain, participation domain, and pollution domain, orderly in the contribution of the assessment of the sustainability. But, the pollution domain is little relationship with the sustainability. Therefore, it is clear that the abundant greens and the improved level of culture are dominant influences on the sustainabiligy, as like improving the ratio of roadside trees, the acreage of parks, and enlarging the number of cultural facilities.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.524-530
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• 2016

Agricultural soils near or around industrial complexes can contain a certain amount of heavy metals that readily enter the food chain and negatively affect human health. Therefore, we conducted the study to investigate the distribution of selected heavy metals, including arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), and zinc (Zn), in farm-land soils around fifteen industrial complexes in the southwestern provinces, Korea. The concentrations of heavy metals in the soil samples were determined by the pseudo-total aqua regia (3 HCl : $1HNO_3$) digestion procedure. The heavy metal concentrations in most soils examined did not exceed the levels of Soil Contamination Warning Standard (SCWS) for agricultural lands (Region 1) presented in Soil Environment Conservation Law (SECL) established by Ministry of Environment (MOE), Korea. However, only one sampling site showed higher As amount ($27.1mg\;kg^{-1}$) than the SCWS level of As ($25mg\;kg^{-1}$). Pollution index (PI) for heavy metals did not exceed 1.0. The PI values were significantly positively correlated (p < 0.01) with the heavy metal concentrations. In particular, the values of correlation coefficient between the Cd and Pb concentrations and the PI values were higher than those estimated from other combinations, and thus the amounts of Cd and Pb in the agricultural soils highly affected the PI values for the heavy metals.

• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.73-81
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• 1997

Retention ponds have been dug along some of the motorways to control water flow during rainstorms and to minmize environmental pollution. A retention pond located at Les Ardilleres about 20km South of Orleans along the A-71 motorway has been selected to evaluate the effectiveness of such a pond as a trap for heavy metals. Based on the "index of geoaccumulation" and the "enrichment factor" normalized to Fe introduced by Muller in 1979 and by Helz in 1976, respectively, the degree of contamination by heavy metals for the roadside soil and the settling particles was evaluated. As expected, the contamination was very severe in the roadside soil, while it was not so great in the settling particles. Using these methods, cadmium anomaly was traced in the settling particles of the retention pond, their occurrence being attributed partly to natural and partly to anthropogenic pollution. The estimated input of heavy metals associated with settling particles to the pond was 0.9 g/day Pb, 2.1 g/day Zn and 6mg/day Cd. A tentative mass balance of Pb and Zn originated by motor vehicles suggested that only 5 to l1% of heavy metals deposited on the surface of the motorway is carried to the retention pond by runoff water ; suggestions are made to improve their efficiency.ve their efficiency.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.112-122
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• 2023

To restore the ecological function of contaminated soil and maximize the ecological services provided by the soil, besides the toxicity orrisk caused by pollutants, the functional aspects of the soil ecosystem should be considered. In this study, a method for evaluating the health of cleaned soil was presented, and the applicability of the proposed evaluation method was examined by applying it to soil treated with washing and landfarming. Productivity, habitat, water retention capacity, nutrient cycling, carbon retention capacity, and buffering capacity were used as soil health evaluation indicators. The results showed that the soil health was not completely recovered after remediation, and even in the case of the washed soil, the health was lower than before remediation. On the other hand, there was no significant change in soil quality due to oil pollution, but soil health deteriorated. Unlike the slightly improved soil quality after landfarming treatment, soil health was not completely restored. Therefore, the results of this study indicate that it is desirable to consider both soil quality and health when evaluating the remediation effect. The soil health evaluation method proposed in this study can be usefully utilized for the sustainable use of cleaned soil and to promote ecosystem services.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.214-225
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• 2022

This study emphasized the soil of environmental impact assessment to devise measures to minimize the negative impact of project implementation on the environment. As a series of efforts for impact assessment procedures, a national inventory-based database was established for urban development projects, and three machine learning model performance evaluation as well as soil pollutant concentration distribution mapping were conducted. Here, nine soil pollutants were mapped to the metropolitan area of South Korea using the Random Forest model, which showed the best performance. The results of this study found that concentrations of Zn, F, and Cd were relatively concerned in Seoul, where urbanization is the most active. In addition, in the case of Hg and Cr6+, concentrations were detected below the standard, which was derived from a lack of pollutants such as industrial and industrial complexes that affect contents of heavy metals. A significant correlation between land cover and pollutants was inferred through the spatial distribution mapping of soil pollutants. Through this, it is expected that efficient soil management measures for minimizing soil pollution and planning decisions regarding the location of the project site can be established.