• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.88-93
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• 2018

In-situ water quality sampling is used for accurate water quality assessment. However, in-situ water quality sampling offers limited samples and requires much time and intensive labors. Remote sensing approach has recently applied for water quality assessment. It has shown the advantage of offering a synoptic view but also more efficient and economical. In this study, we utilized Landsat Imagery to estimate the water quality of the Tamsui River basin, considered as one of the most important rivers located in the north of Taiwan. In order to monitor water quality of Tamsui River basin, a linear regression relation between the value of spectral radiance and four water quality parameters are investigated with 38 water sampling stations. Through the regression model, we could estimate river pollution index (RPI) from the predicted value of four water quality parameters. By using RPI, we can examine the pollution level of Tamsui River. The accuracy of RPI conversion of this study ranged from 32.2% to 68.2%.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to assess spatiotemporal variation of coastal water quality according to time and location changes. For this we developed numerical marine trophic index base on four water quality components (chlorophyll, suspended solids, dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus) and applied this index to the water quality data measured in the korean coastal zone for the 7-years period from 1997 to 2003. Water quality data are obtained only at selected sites even though they are potentially available at any location. Therefore, in order to estimate spatial variation of coastal water quality, it is necessary to estimate the unknown values at unsampled locations based on observation data. In this study, we used IDW (Inverse Distance Weighted) method to predict water quality components at unmeasured locations and applied marine trophic index to predicted values obtained by IDW interpolation. The results of this study indicate that marine trophic index and spatial interpolation are useful for understanding spatiotemporal characteristics of coastal water quality.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.592-597
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• 2008

Current water quality standard (WQS) in Korea is based on the protection of human health, not considering the protection of aquatic organisms. Most of chemicals can be toxic to ecological biota as well as human. Health of aquatic biota is closely related to the human health via food chain, therefore ecological risk based-WQS needs to be developed to protect the aquatic ecosystem. In this study, we selected the 31 chemicals in the Project entitled 'Development of integrated methodology for evaluation of water environment'. The methodology for calculating water quality criteria was derived from the Australian and New Zealand processes for deriving guideline trigger value for aquatic ecosystem. The available ecotoxicity data were collected from US EPA's ECOTOXicology Database (ECOTOX), TOX-2000 Database, European Chemicals Bureau (ECB)'s International Uniform Chemical Information Database (IUCLID) and Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)'s report 'Ambient Water Quality Criteria (AWQC)'. The aquatic toxicity data for the Korean species were selected for risk assessment to reflect the Korean water environment. The monitoring values were calculated from the water quality monitoring data four main Korean rivers. We suggested the order of priorities of chemicals based on ecological risk assessment. We expect that these results can be useful information for establishing the WQS for the protection of aquatic ecosystem.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.520-527
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• 2016

Phycocyanin (PC) is one of the water-soluble accessory pigments of cyanobacteria species, and its concentration is used to estimate the presence and relative abundance of cyanobacteria. In laboratory experiments, PC content of field data were determined using Sarada's freeze-thaw method in algal bloom season. The effectiveness of three selected extraction methods (repeated freeze-thaw method, homogenization, power control) for PC were determined. The extraction efficiency of phycocyanin was the highest (of the methods compared) when a single freezing-thawing cycle was followed by pre-sonication. Applying this optimized method to surface water of Korean inland waters, the average concentration distribution was estimated at $2.9{\sim}51.9mg/m^3$. It has been shown that the optimized pre-sonication method is suitable to measure cyanobacteria PC content for the characterization of inland waters. The approach and results of this study indicates the potential of effective methods for remote monitoring and management of water quality in turbid inland waters using hyperspectral remote sensing.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.606-614
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• 2009

To evaluate the biological water quality, diatom-based biological indices (DAIpo and TDI) were examined in the Sum-River and the Dal-stream. Having BOD concentrations below $2mg{\cdot}L^{-1}$ in most sites, water quality of both rivers was good. The DAIpo and TDI values ranged from 29.8 to 91.4 and from 38.7 to 93.0 respectively. From the biological water quality assessment, DAIpo and TDI for both rivers displayed fair to fairly poor water quality levels. However, the two indices showed more polluted conditions than expected from the BOD vlaues. In addition, DAIpo, having wider range of differences, appears to be more sensitive to the change in water quality when compared to TDI values. Statistical analysis using principal component analysis showed that Nitzschia palea and Diatoma vulgare might not be the appropriate indicators due to their low correlations with other indicators.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.356-365
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• 2021

Background: Concerns have been raised regarding the criteria of groundwater, in particular in Gwangwon-do Province where many residents drink groundwater due to the poor supply of tap water and a high nonconformity rate with water quality criteria nationwide. Objectives: Water quality monitoring and risk assessment were conducted for groundwater in Hoengseong, Gangwon-do Province. Methods: A total of 46 items required for meeting drinking water criteria were analyzed from 258 samples collected from March 2017 through August 2018 (152 sites in 2017 and 106 sites in 2018). Risk assessment was conducted for two non-carcinogens (F^- and NO₃-N), and one carcinogen (i.e., arsenic) based on their high nonconformity to water quality criteria. Results: Water quality analysis revealed that the total proportion of nonconformities was determined to be 27.9%. The nonconformity rate for each content item is as follows: total colony counts (1.6%), total coliform (6.2%), Escherichia coli (1.2%), F^- (8.1%), arsenic (4.7%), NO₃-N (8.1%), pH (1.2%), manganese (0.4%), and turbidity (5.8%). Risk assessment indicated that fluoride induced a hazard quotient greater than 1 with the 95% UCL (Upper Confidence Limit) concentration of the total 258 sites and average, median, and 95% UCL concentrations of nonconformity sites. For NO₃-N, there was no human health risk. For arsenic, the excess cancer risk exceeded the acceptable cancer risk of 1×10^-6 with the average and 95% UCL concentrations of total 258 sites and average, median, and 95% UCL concentrations of nonconformity sites. Conclusions: This study suggests that it is necessary to expand water quality monitoring of groundwater and conduct a more detailed risk assessment in order to establish a health care plan for the residents of Hoengseong, Gangwon-do Province.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.13-24
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• 2000

This paper presents a study of water quality model applications in environmental impact statements which were submitted during recent years in Korea. Most of the applications have reported that the development projects would have significant impacts on the water quality, especially, of streams and rivers. The water quality models, however, were hardly used as an impact prediction tool. Even in the cases where models were used, calibration and verification studies were not performed and thus the predicted results would not be reliable. These poor model applications in environmental impact assessment can be attributable to the fact that there were no available model application guidelines as well as no requirements by the review agency. In addition, the expected waste loads were improperly estimated in most cases, especially in non-point sources, and the predicted parameters were not good enough to understand water quality problems expected from the proposed plans. The effects of mitigation measures were not analyzed in most cases. Again, these can be attributed to no formal guidelines available for impact predictions until now. A brief guideline is described in this paper, including model selection, calibration and verification, impact prediction, and analysis of effects of mitigation measures. The results of this study indicate that the model application should be required to overcome the current improper predictions of environmental impacts and the guidelines should be developed in detail and provided.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.723-731
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• 2015

We investigated the spatial and temporal patterns of water quality in the Gangjung-Goryoung weir that is located in the middle area of the Nakdong river, Korea. The monitoring results indicated that there are discernible vertical differences in water quality during the pre- and post-monsoon periods (May to September). During this period, it was observed that the weak thermal stratification formed at the maximum level, and pH, Chl-a, and DO concentrations in the surface layer were higher than those in the bottom layer. This vertical difference was especially noticeable for DO concentrations: there were DO depletions at the bottom layer in late June to early August. During the summer monsoon period with heavy rainfall, there was a decline in vertical differences in water quality. From this study, it was suggested that continuous monitoring of vertical profiles could become a useful tool for identifying the spatial and temporal distributions of water quality and for developing the best management policy for water quality in the Nakdong river.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.431-441
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• 2005

The study was carried out to improve and regulate the drinking water quality standard and drinking water quality monitoring substances. For the reliability and safety of finished water, It has been monitored for trace organic and inorganic compounds of 333 in finished water of water treatment plants during 1989 to 2003. As a result of monitoring, 51 compounds were detected from 333 compounds, and it has been regulated the drinking water quality standard of 26 substances and 20 mitoring substance. Improvement and regulation method of the drinking water quality standard was performed by comparing and analyzing with detection concentration, detection frequency, risk assessment and foreign drinking water quality standard.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.219-229
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• 2017

A watershed-river linked modeling system was developed to forecast the water quality, particularly weekly changes in chlorophyll-a concentration, of the Yeongsan River, Korea. Hydrological Simulation Program-Fortran (HSPF) and Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code (EFDC) were adopted as the basic model framework. In this study, the EFDC model was modified to effectively simulate the operational condition and flow of multi-functional weirs constructed in the main channel of rivers. The model was tested against hydrologic, water quality and algal data collected at the right upstream sites of two weirs in 2014. The mean absolute errors (MAEs) of the model calibration on the annual variations of river stage, TN, TP, and algal concentration are 0.03 ~ 0.10 m, 0.65 ~ 0.67 mg/L, 0.03 ~ 0.04 mg/L, and $9.7{\sim}10.8mg/m^3$, respectively. On the other hand, the MAE values of forecasting results for chlorophyll-a level at the same sites in 2015 range from 18.7 to $22.4mg/m^3$, which are higher than those of model calibration. The increased errors in forecasting are mainly attributed to the higher uncertainties of weather forecasting data compared to the observed data used in model calibration.