• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.276-287
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• 2013

Domestic sewage contains increasingly more pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), due to rising use of medicines, health supplement food and daily necessities. And various types of industrial wastewater from pollution sources in treatment areas could flow into the public sewerage treatment plants (PSTPs) in metropolitan areas. The conventional PSTPs are designed to treat suspended solids, biodegradable organics, nitrogen and phosphorous from residential and industrial areas and public facilities. However, toxic, conventional, and non-coventional pollutants from non-domestic sources that discharge into sewer system as well as domestic source with various chemicals could not be treated in the conventional PSTPs and discharged untreated to public basin. In this paper we aim to consider the establishment system of effluent standard of PSTPs in comparison with water quality standard of water environment and wastewater discharge regulation. And also we suggest the necessity of regulations on the pretreatment of industrial wastewater as part of efforts to improve water quality in sewerage systems and to protect public basin.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.535-550
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• 2018

Total organic carbon (TOC) will replace chemical oxygen demand ($COD_{Mn}$) as an effluent water quality standard in public sewage treatment works (PSTWs) from 2021 in Korea. To ensure effective control of TOC in the effluent, investigation was carried out into TOC levels and sewage treatment operation factors in five target PSTWs using anaerobic-anoxic-aerobic ($A_2O$) processes, media, membrane, and sequencing batch reactor (SBR) technologies. TOC removal efficiencies appeared to be 93-96% on average. As a fraction of TOC, biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC) was reduced from 64% in the influent to 9% in the effluent in these PSTWs. During the investigation, biological treatment processes were applied flexibly for operation factors such as HRT, SRT, MLSS, F/M ratios and BOD volume loads, based on the influent characteristics and design conditions. As a result, we suggest efficient operating conditions in PSTWs by evaluating relationships between TOC removal and operation factors.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.491-498
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• 2017

Objective: Bacterial abundance and community compositions have been examined in Asian dust events, clarifying their impacts on public health. This study aims to determine the bacterial community compositions and viable bacteria in Asian dust particles in the Asian dust or non-Asian dust event of March 2016. Methods: The dust samples were collected using the high volume air sampler or high volume cascade impactor, and bacterial 16S rRNA genes were amplified using PCR, followed by pyrosequencing. Bacterial diversity index, richness estimate and community composition in the particles were analyzed from the sequencing data using Mothur software. Results: The results showed that the diversity and richness during Asian dust events were higher than them in non-Asian dust events. The total bacterial community analysis showed that at the phylum Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes were the most dominant of Asian dust events and non-Asian dust events. In addition, the bacterial colony counts were higher during Asian dust event, comparing with non-Asian dust event. Conclusions: This study showed that bacterial community and richness of Asian dust samples was more complex and higher than non-Asian dust samples in Gyeonggi-do, Korea, which could affect public health and environment. Thus, the continuous monitoring of Asian dust could be an alternative for managing airborne bacteria.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.493-502
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• 2015

In accordance with the Watershed Sewer System Maintenance Plan enforced on February 2, 2013, the different compliance concentration of effluent limit be applied to effluent discharged from public sewage treatment works(PSTWs) in each watershed on the basis of water quality thereof. With the introduction of watershed sewer system, it is necessary to set the compliance concentration of effluent limit for PSTWs situated in the watershed, by region and PSTW size, to achieve water quality criteria for regional watersheds or target water quality under TMDL program. Watershed Environmental Agencies establish the Watershed Sewer System Maintenance Plan and set the compliance concentrations of effluent limit for PSTWs under the plan. The agencies plan to apply tougher effluent BOD concentration limits in Class I to IV areas. Effluent BOD concentration limits will be toughened from 5~10 mg/L to 3 mg/L in class II~III areas, from 10mg/L to 5mg/L in class IV areas. Uniform application of effluent BOD concentration limits to PSTWs in the watershed sewer system need to be complemented considering type of sewage treatment technology employed and watershed characteristics. Therefore, this study presents method to determine the compliance concentration of effluent limit from PSTWs in the watershed.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.122-129
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• 2021

As the total organic carbon (TOC) becomes a new water quality standard as an organic matter (OM) index for public sewage treatment facilities (PSTFs) in Korea from 2021, a comparison study needs to be conducted by examining the correlation between TOC and the existing OM indices (DOC, BOD5, CODMn, CODCr). 500 PSTFs were categorized by process configuration and capacity, and correlation between OM indices in influent and effluent was analyzed. The CODMn/TOC showed higher correlation than other OM indices. This results can be used to basic data for various research associated with TOC.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.30 no.10
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• pp.1516-1524
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• 2020

Climate change is expected to affect not only availability and quality of water, the valuable resource of human life on Earth, but also ultimately public health issue. A six-year monitoring (total 20 times) of Escherichia coli O157, Salmonella enterica, Legionella pneumophila, Shigella sonnei, Campylobacter jejuni, and Vibrio cholerae was conducted at five raw water sampling sites including two lakes, Hyundo region (Geum River) and two locations near Water Intake Plants of Han River (Guui region) and Nakdong River (Moolgeum region). A total 100 samples of 40 L water were tested. Most of the targeted bacteria were found in 77% of the samples and at least one of the target bacteria was detected (65%). Among all the detected bacteria, E. coli O157 were the most prevalent with a detection frequency of 22%, while S. sonnei was the least prevalent with a detection frequency of 2%. Nearly all the bacteria (except for S. sonnei) were present in samples from Lake Soyang, Lake Juam, and the Moolgeum region in Nakdong River, while C. jejuni was detected in those from the Guui region in Han River. During the six-year sampling period, individual targeted noxious bacteria in water samples exhibited seasonal patterns in their occurrence that were different from the indicator bacteria levels in the water samples. The fact that they were detected in the five Korea's representative water environments make it necessary to establish the chemical and biological analysis for noxious bacteria and sophisticated management systems in response to climate change.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.73-80
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• 1991

In Korea, small-scale reclaimed areas have been suffering from many problems because of the lack of comprehensive developing strategy although considerable investments have been inputed by the public sector since 1970's. For 3 reclaimed sites in Chonnam Province chosen as case study areas, the analysis, the third attempt of widely-spanned studies on areal conditions, concentrated on their living conditions. Its results were as follows : 1. Although rural residents have increased their concern on health and medical services, the public sector can only serve basic and emergent level of them, and therefore, the private sector, which is mostly placed in urban areas and costed much higher than public one, has the dominant share of those services. So, because those costs are a great expense to rural residents, their supplying system should be planned with special reference to lightening the economic burden of them. 2. By the development of locally fitted programs and innovative systems, the rural education should be qualitatively improved to deal successfully with its small scale. That will result in increasing the schooling rate to schools in rural communities, lightening the economic burden of rural residents on education services and finally activating them to contribute the betterment of rural education. 3. Servicing level of water supply, sewerage and garbage disposal in the reclaimed areas has been remaining at the lower order even in other rural areas. In the design of rural water supply, average daily consumption per capita should be changed according to the composition rate of fishing households and variety of the source of water supply. 4. Most of rural residents in the reclaimed areas want to establish the welfare facilites for the infant, youth, aged and public bath However in the long-term basis, the cooperative production and processing facilities should be considered for modernized efficient farming.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.231-239
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• 2023

Public sewage treatment facilities are a necessary infrastructure for public health that treat sewage generated in cities and basin living areas and discharge it into rivers or seas. Recently, the role of public sewage treatment is receiving attention as a place of use of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), which analyzes human specific metabolic emissions or biomarkers present in sewage to investigate the environment to which the population is exposed in the water drain. WBE is mainly applied to investigate legal and water-law drug use or to predict and analyze the lifestyle of local residents. WBE has also been applied to predict and analyze the degree of infectious diseases that are prevalent worldwide, such as COVID-19. Since sewage flowing into public sewage treatment facilities includes living information of the population living in the drainage area, it is easy to collect basic data to predict the confirmation and spread of infectious diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a new role of public sewage treatment facilities as an infrastructure necessary for WBE that can obtain information on the confirmation and spread of infectious diseases other than the traditional role of public sewage treatment. In South Korea, the sewerage supply rate is about 95.5% and the number of public sewage treatment facility is 4,209. This means that the infrastructure of sewerage is fully established. However, to successfully drive for WBE , research on monitoring and big-data analysis is needed.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.361-370
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• 2016

It is well known that the inflow of rainwater and the infiltration of groundwater to sewerage (I/I) increase the sewage and burden sewage treatment plants and lower their treatment efficiency. Therefore, it is important to estimate the amount of I/I. In this study, well groundwaters, public water supplies (PWSs), and sewage and rainwater channels were investigated to check whether oxygen and deuterium isotopes could be used as a tool for I/I estimation. This study shows that the isotopic composition of PWS in Jeonju area is very consistent over time and distinctly lighter than the circulating local rainwater (CLR) because it is supplied from Yongdam Dam, which is located about 40 km inland to the east in the mountainous area. Considering the fact that sewage mostly originates from the PWS, we could calculate the amounts of CLR in the sewerage from a monitoring station using unaffected rainwater and tap water as mixing end members. The calculation revealed that the CLR fraction ranged from 50% to 90% depending on observation time. This is well supported by the dilute natures of the sewages at the station. The fraction of PWS in investigated well waters were about 46%, indicating that leaking of PWS is very serious and is an important groundwater source in the study area. Since the infiltration of such groundwater may not alter the isotopic composition of sewage significantly, the actual I/I would be much greater than the calculated ones.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.315-324
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• 2014

The residents' odor complaint is steadily increasing by odor causing from sewage system. A current drainage facilities and septic tank are included in the individual sewerage according to Sewerage Act. However, definitions and legal standards of drainage tank are insufficient. In addition, specifications and maintenance standards related to structure and size are not established. In this research, effect of drainage tank in individual sewage facilities on the odor occurrence was studied and the concentrations of $H_2S$ and composite odor were measured. From the measurements, the concentration of $H_2S$ and composite odor were 1 ppm ~ 5 ppm and 1.04 OU ~ 4.05 OU, respectively, before pump operation. Also, the concentration of $H_2S$ and composite odor were 5 ppm ~ 33 ppm and 5.10 OU ~ 35.04 OU, respectively, after pump operation. The concentration of SS in the effluent from drainage tank was ranged from 840 mg/L to 1,980 mg/L. These high concentration of SS seemed to be the major source of foul smell when high concentrated suspended solids in the public sewerage system were decomposed and then emitted. In this research, correlation coefficient ($R^2$) between $H_2S$ and composite odor before and after pumping were 0.925 and 0.918, respectively.