• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.459-462
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• 2004

This study assesses groundwater vulnerability to contaminants in 12 administrative districts of the city of Changwon, using DRASTIC technique. DRASTIC was originally applied to situations in which the contamination sources are at the ground surface, and the contaminants flow into the groundwater with infiltration of rainfall. However, groundwater contamination in urban areas can also be related to excessive pumping resulting in a lowering of the water level. The correlation coefficient between minimum DRASTIC indices and the degree of poor water quality for 10 districts is low as 0.40. The correlation coefficients between minimum DRASTIC indices and the groundwater discharge rate, and between minimum DRASTIC indices and well density per unit area are 0.70 and 0.87, respectively. Thus, to evaluate the potential of groundwater contamination in urban areas, it is necessary to consider other factors such as groundwater withdrawal rate and well density per unit area with ratings and weights as well as the existing six DRASTIC factors.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.37-45
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• 2009

Susceptibility assessment of groundwater contamination is a useful tool for many aspects of regional and local groundwater resources planning and management. It can be used to direct regulatory, monitoring, educational, and policy-making efforts to highly vulnerable areas. In this study, a semi process-based was proposed to evaluate relative susceptibilities to groundwater contamination by nitrate on a regional scale. Numerical simulation based on data from each soil series was done to model water flow within soil profiles that were related to groundwater contamination by nitrate. Relative vulnerability indices for each soil series were produced by manipulation of amount of leaching flux, amount of average water storage in a soil profile, and amount of average water storage change. These indices were designed to convey the trend of leaching flux and to maximize spatial resolution. The resulting vulnerability distribution map was used to locate highly vulnerable sites easily with an appropriate grouping the indices, and was then compared with those from groundwater nitrate concentrations monitored. An excellent agreement was obtained across nitrate concentrations from the highly vulnerable regions and those from the low to stable regions.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.37 no.6 s.169
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• pp.631-645
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• 2004

This study assesses groundwater vulnerability to contaminants in industrial and residential/commercial areas of the city of Changwon, using DRASTIC technique and groundwater data. The DRASTIC technique was originally applied to situations in which the contamination sources are at the ground surface, and the contaminants flow into the groundwater with infiltration of rainfall. Mostly the industrial area has higher DRASTIC indices than the residential/commercial area. However, a part of the residential/commercial area having much groundwater production and great drawdown is more contaminated in groundwater than other industrial and the residential/commercial areas even if it has lowest DRASTIC indices in the study area. It indicates that groundwater contamination in urban areas can be closely related to excessive pumping resulting in a lowering of the water level. The correlation coefficient between minimum DRASTIC indices and the degree of poor water quality for 10 districts is as low as 0.40. On the other hand, the correlation coefficients between minimum DRASTIC indices and the groundwater discharge rate, and between minimum DRASTIC indices and well distribution density per unit area are 0.70 and 0.87, respectively. Thus, to evaluate the potential of groundwater contamination in urban areas, it is necessary to consider other human-made factors such as groundwater withdrawal rate and well distribution density per unit area as well as the existing seven DRASTIC factors.

• Ocean Science Journal
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2005

Variations in species diversity and abundance of polychaete taxocenes that occurred in 1980-1989 under different contamination levels of bottom sediments were studied in three areas of Peter the Great Bay. The most polluted area was shown to be the Golden Horn Inlet where contaminant contents in the bottom sediments exceed the threshold values of negative biota alterations. Amursky Bay is characterized by a moderate level of contamination, while Ussuriysky Bay has the lowest level of contamination. Pollutant contents vary considerably within the same areas and their separate patches are polluted differently. An integral index characterizing the contamination of bottom sediments is proposed. This index is an average grade of the rank value of contaminant contents in sediments. The index was used to compare the contamination level and data on polychaete species diversity and abundance. The highest species diversity of polychaetes is found in the least affected zones. Monotonous decrease of the species number, as well as decrease in the indices of diversity and evenness, is correlated with pollution level increases. Significant growth of the average polychaete biomass and polychaete density is observed in the case of an increase of contamination from low to moderate levels. Conversely, the biomass and abundance of polychaetes decline following an increase in contamination.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.31
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• pp.6.1-6.10
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• 2016

Objectives This study examined the spatial distribution and the extent of soil contamination by heavy metals resulting from primitive, unconventional informal electronic waste recycling in the Agbogbloshie e-waste processing site (AEPS) in Ghana. Methods A total of 132 samples were collected at 100 m intervals, with a handheld global position system used in taking the location data of the soil sample points. Observing all procedural and quality assurance measures, the samples were analyzed for barium (Ba), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn), using X-ray fluorescence. Using environmental risk indices of contamination factor and degree of contamination ($C_{deg}$), we analyzed the individual contribution of each heavy metal contamination and the overall $C_{deg}$. We further used geostatistical techniques of spatial autocorrelation and variability to examine spatial distribution and extent of heavy metal contamination. Results Results from soil analysis showed that heavy metal concentrations were significantly higher than the Canadian Environmental Protection Agency and Dutch environmental standards. In an increasing order, Pb>Cd>Hg>Cu>Zn>Cr>Co>Ba>Ni contributed significantly to the overall $C_{deg}$. Contamination was highest in the main working areas of burning and dismantling sites, indicating the influence of recycling activities. Geostatistical analysis also revealed that heavy metal contamination spreads beyond the main working areas to residential, recreational, farming, and commercial areas. Conclusions Our results show that the studied heavy metals are ubiquitous within AEPS and the significantly high concentration of these metals reflect the contamination factor and $C_{deg}$, indicating soil contamination in AEPS with the nine heavy metals studied.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.175-189
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• 2020

Municipal solid waste disposal is considered as one of the most important risks for environmental contamination which necessitates the development of strategies to reduce destructive consequences on the ecosystem as related especially to heavy metal accumulation. This study investigates heavy metal (i.e., As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn) accumulation in the Tonekabon region, NW of Iran that is related to city waste disposal and evaluates the environmental impact in the Caspian Sea coastal region. For this purpose, after performing field studies and collecting 50 soil specimens from 5 sites of the study area, geochemical tests (i.e., inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, atomic absorption spectroscopy and x-ray fluorescence) were conducted on the soil specimens collected from the 5 sites (named as Sites A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5) and the results were used to estimate the pollution indices (i.e., geo-accumulation index, normalized enrichment factor, contamination factor, and pollution load index). The obtained indices were utilized to assess the eco-toxicological risk level in the landfill site which indicated that the city has been severely contaminated by Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn. These levels have been developed along the stream towards the nearshore areas indicating uptake of soil degradation. The heavy metal contamination was classified to range from unpolluted to highly polluted, which indicated serious heavy metal pollution in the study area as related to municipal solid waste disposal in Tonekabon.

• Proceedings of the Optical Society of Korea Conference
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• 1989.02a
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• pp.218-221
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• 1989

Buried Bragg reflectors which are immune to the contamination of the surface of an optical waveguide chip are fabricated on Si3N4-SiO2 rib optical waveguides on Si. The effective refractive indices and the bandwidths of the fabricated buried Bragg reflector waveguides are determined by transmission measurement. We show that the measured values of the effective refractive indices are consistent with the calculated values as the width of the waveguide rib varies. Propagation losses of the guided modes due to the leakage into the si substrate are also calculated.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.655-665
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• 2011

Contamination of butyltin compounds (BTs), namely tributyltin (TBT), dibutyltin (DBT) and monobutyltin (MBT), was evaluated in sediments collected inside Jeju Harbor in 2001. The concentrations of BTs in surface sediments were comparable to those in other sites of domestic and foreign countries. The high correlations between BTs in surface ($r^2$ = 0.83~0.91) and core ($r^2$ = 0.70~0.79) sediments and the significant correlations between BTs concentrations and the number of incoming and outgoing vessels indicated that DBT and MBT were mainly degraded from TBT based on antifouling paints of vessels etc. and other sources, such as DBT and MBT, could be ignored. The butyltin degradation indices ([DBT] + [MBT]/[TBT]) in surface sediments were in the range of 2.2~3.6 (mean 2.7), indicating that the parent compound, TBT, was inflowed into the surface sediments a long ago, degraded and deposited. The sedimentation age of BTs contaminated core sediments could not estimated because the content of $^{210}Pb$ activity was nearly all the same and so the sedimentation rate could not obtained.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.11 no.9
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• pp.881-895
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• 2002

Sediments and river waters form the channel of Hwasun-cheon were studied in sedimentological size and geochemical analyses of metallic elements for the purposes of identification of depositional environments and geochemical characteristics. The sizes of sediments are assigned to pebble to coarse sand in mean size and polymodal in distribution. And the sediments are poorly to very poorly sorted and positively skewed. According to the grain size distributions of the sediments, the Hwasun-cheon belongs to gravel-bed river on the basis of the grain size distribution of the sediments. The behaviors of metallic elements in the sediments mainly depend on not grain size distribution but the geology connected with geomorphological reliefs near the stream. Contamination indices(CI) of Zn, Cu and Pb are 2.83 to 6.96 with average 4.31 in the sediments. Hwasun-cheon is assigned to general stream type in accordance with water quality of physical factors and chemical characteristics by Piper's diagram. Though meaningful values of BOD, T-N, T-P were locally depicted near Masan-ri, Hwasun-eup and Jiseok-cheon areas, artificial metal concentration do not represent in the most area of the stream. Sediments and river water are considered that the relatively more or less high metallic contents in the stream are originated from coal mine and urban area.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.379-394
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• 2002

This study was initiated to identify groundwater quality and contamination at present in the 'A' section of Seoul Metropolitan Subway. Groundwater samples were collected at 21 boreholes along the 'A' section and appeared to show mainly $Ca-HCO_3$ type. In 20 samples, concentration of $SO_4$, Cd, Pb, Fe, Mn, Al, F and $NO_3-N$ were higher than those of Korean drinking water quality standards. From chemical data and saturation Indices, contaminant sources of individual chemical elements were inferred to be buried wastes and surface sediments over the study area. The result of factor analysis suggested that the pollution factor should account for about 47% of data variation.