• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.137-159
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• 1999

Over the last three decades, Korean farming system has been directed to maximum agricultural production and to increase farmer's income through adoption of high-yielding crop varieties and high input of agrochemicals . These farming practices have resulted in problems of water-quality deterioration, soil degradation , and food safety. At present, over 40 million tones of animal waste are bing produced annually, which amounts to disposing the waste at the annual rate of 20 tones per ha in the total area of farming land in Korea. Nearly a half of total available water resources is used as irrigation water predominantly for rice paddy field. Thus, non-point source contamination of the water resources has been linked to agriculture across the nation. However, the extent to which agriculture contributes to the water quality is not fully known. Recently, Korean government provided various institutional measures to reduce the negative impacts of agricultural practices on the environ ental quality, and the Agricultural Environment Act was also passed by the legislature in 1998 and became effective January 1999. This Act does not cover the broad spectrum of the sustainable agriculture ; thus, the limited incentives within this Act are arguably ineffective to control the non-point source pollution. Recently new bulk blending of fertilizers(BB fertilizer) are bing produced (100, 000 tones in 1998) with Government subsidies. The BB fertilizers are to balance N-P-K ratio in the soils . Although the use of the BB fertilizers are encouraged with Government subsidies, non-point source pollution is still serious and will become worse. Precision farming is regarded as a new means for sustainable agriculture. It is a new technology that modifies the existing techniques and incorporates new one such as GIS, GPS , differential applicator to produce a new set of tools for the farmer to use. Precision farming, however, has constraints for individual farming practices. For exam le , farm size or parcel unit of each farmer is too small to adopt the precision agriculture on farmhouse-hold bases and farmer's ability to adopt the new technology is limited. However, it would be appropriate to establish local or regional cooperatives to operate such a precision farming system. It is recommended that Government provide sufficient incentives to help establish local and/or regional cooperatives.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.45-69
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• 2014

The groundwater has been a major source of water supply throughout the ages. Around 50% of the rural as well as urban population in the developing countries like India depends on groundwater for drinking. The groundwater is also an important source in the agriculture and industrial sector. In many parts of the world, groundwater resources are under increasing threat from growing demands, wasteful use and contamination. A good planning and management practices are needed to face this challenge. A key to the management of groundwater is the ability to model the movement of fluids and contaminants in the subsurface environment. It is obvious that the contaminant source activities cannot be completely eliminated and perhaps our water bodies will continue to serve as receptors of vast quantities of waste. In such a scenario, the goal of water quality protection efforts must necessarily be the control and management of these sources to ensure that released pollutants will be sufficiently attenuated within the region of interest and the quality of water at points of withdrawal is not impaired. In order to understand the behaviour of contaminant transport through different types of media, several researchers are carrying out experimental investigations through laboratory and field studies. Many of them are working on the analytical and numerical studies to simulate the movement of contaminants in soil and groundwater of the contaminant transport. With the advent of high power computers especially, a numerical modelling has gained popularity and is indeed of particular relevance in this regard. This paper provides the state of the art of contaminant transport and reviews the allied research works carried out through experimental investigation or using the analytical solution and numerical method. The review involves the investigation in respect of both, saturated and unsaturated, porous media.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.293-301
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• 2013

Borehole Disposal Concept (BDC) was initiated by the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) with the view to improve the radioactive waste management practices in Africa. At a time when geological disposal of radioactive waste is being considered, the need to protect ground water from possible radioactive contamination and the investigation of radionuclides migration through soil and rocks of zone of aeration into ground water has becomes very imperative. This is why the Borehole Disposal Concept (BDC) is being suggested to address the problem. The concept involves the conditioning and emplacement of disused sealed radioactive sources in an engineered facility of a relatively narrow diameter borehole (260 mm). Tanzania is operating a Radioactive Waste Management Facility where a number of spent sealed radioactive sources with long and short half lives are stored. The activity of spent sealed radioactive sources range from (1E-6 to 8.8E+3 Ci). However, the long term disposal solution is still a problem. This study therefore proposing the country to adopt the BDC, since the repository requires limited land area and has a low probability of human intrusion due to the small footprint of the borehole.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.34-43
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• 1996

The present pesticide application technology widely used with a power sprayer in Korea is assessed as the problem awaiting solution in the point of view of its ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and environmental contamination. As one approach to get rid of these problems, the boom spraying with ultra-low volume and precision application technology has been recommended. The study was undertaken to investigate plants damages incurred by the self-propelled boom-sprayer vehicle, to develop the design criteria of vehicle wheel, and to compare plant damages caused by the front wheel steering vehicle, the 4-wheel drive vehicle and the articulated vehicle, by the computer simulation. The experiment showed that the amount of damaged plants incurred by the self-propelled boom sprayer were about 0.29% in average in the field size of 100m$\times$50m(0.5ha), about 60~80% of which recovering while growing. The recommandable wheel size was analyzed to be 70~100cm in diameter, 8~15cm in width from the vehicle-plant-soil relationship. The simulation on damaged plants anticipated to be incurred by various steering vehicles showed that the smaller the turning radius, the lesser the damaged plants within its range of 3~5m. Average plant damage rate by the front wheel steering vehicle, the 4-wheel drive vehicle and articulated vehicle was relatively assessed to be 2 : 1.8 : 1.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation
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• v.3 no.4 s.11
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• pp.145-151
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• 2003

The domestic and the industry wastes which mainly come out of human life activities have been usually processed mainly by the incineration method and/or the method of reclamation. The method of reclamation, specially open dumping, has caused significant environmental pollution problems on the local or regional soil and groundwater system by leachate. Therefore, to investigate the 3-D structure characteristics of environmental pollution area is one of the hot subjects. We applied dipole-dipole method of electrical resistivity survey to investigate 3-D environmental contamination characteristics of the Noeun landfill area. For electrical resistivity survey, the line for measurements was established parallel to the main boundary of the Noeun landfill, for effective investigation of the whole landfill area. The result shows that the uppermost layer of the Noeun landfill is believed to be stabilized completely, based on the result of electrical resistivity values. However, the lowest layer of the Noeun landfill was partially polluted by leachate. Therefore, the electrical resistivity survey method is believed to be the one of the most effective methods to investigate three-dimensional distribution of leachate occurred in the lower part of landfill area.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.53-58
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• 1999

This study was carried out evaluate to identify water quality and contamination characteristics of the shallow groundwater. and their seasonal variation in the rual area of the Yongin city. Groundwater sample were collected two times (in April and September) from a total of 19 well for domestic water supply. and surface-water samples from six locations. For cations, Ca and Mg predominated. In anion competition. the influence of Cl was obvious in the april samples. However. HCO$_3$ was a major component in the september samples. Electric conductivities and the concentrations of NO$_3$-N in groundwater samples significantly decreased from the april samples to the september samples This indicates a significant seasonal variation in the shallow groundwater composition. When the shallow aquifer is connected to the surface water. then metals sorbed on the stream sediments could occur at nearby wells through the induced recharge. Contaminants at ground surface appeared to be transported to the groundwater system infiltration during the spring melt.

• Food Science and Preservation
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.150-154
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• 2000

The use of artificially synthesized inorganic manure for the production of fruits and vegetables gives rise to soil contamination as well as noxious effects against human. Changes in quality of strawberry (SN) cultivated with a natural organic manure developed to solve such problems were studied during storage at 4$^{\circ}$C for 2 weeks. SN showed higher weight/volume ratio and lower weight loss during storage than strawberry (control) cultivated with commercial synthetic mature. Sweetness was higher in SN (9.2 Brix) than in control (8.2 Brix), and decrease in sweetness during storage was smaller in SN than in control. Redness (b) of strawberry was 32.1 in SN and 30.2 in control, and the redness decreased during storage showing 25.2 and 23.0, respectively, after 2 weeks. Hardness was higher in SN than in control, and decrease in hardness during storage was smaller in SN than in control. Vitamin C content was slightly higher in SN than in control, and mineral contents were generally higher in SN than in control.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.225-229
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• 2003

Plant ash and soil drainage, derived by frequent mountain fires during winter, might cause biological contamination to seaweeds at seashore and river mouse area. To thalli of Ulva pertusa, maximum non-lethal concentration(MNLC), lethal concentration 50 $(LC_{50})$ and minimum lethal concentration (MLC) of pine needle ash were shown as 60, 350 and 550 mg/mL, respectively. The yellow loess and granite sand did not damage at concentrations of 20 and 200 mg/mL, respectively To thalli of Porphyra yezoensis, the MNLC, LC5O, MLC of pine needle ash were shown as 0.08, 0.4 and 1.0 mg/mL, respectively. Effects of yellow loess and granite sand were approximately 1/2 and 1/10 of the ash. To thalli of Undaria pinnatifida, the pine needle ash, yellow loess and granite sand did not damage at the concentration range of 20 to 40 mg/mL. Change of pigments $(chlorophyll\;\alpha,\;lutein,\;\beta-carotene,\;phycoerthrin)$ was also determined at the MNLC, $LC-{50}$ and MLC of pine needle ash. Among three seaweeds tested, P. yezoensis produced the most 2.7-fold of lutein and 2.3-fold of $\beta-carotene$ at $LC-{50}$ of the ash. Thus the P. yezoensis, appeared as a sensitive indicator, could be used as one of test organisms for determination of the biological effect of pollutants contaminated in marine environment.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.235-242
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• 2014

Uranium can be released into the water environment from natural sources and human activities. The natural source of uranium is dominant in the Korean soil and groundwater environments. Uranium has both of radioactive and chemical toxic properties. Therefore, a drinking water contaminated with uranium has a high health risk. This study was conducted to determine the uranium concentration of water systems including small village drinking water system, groundwater for drinking water purpose, spring water, groundwater monitoring well, and emergency water suppling system. The uranium concentration was compared with domestic and other countries' standard. The contamination level was also evaluated on the basis of geological characteristics of the area. Among total 803 samples, 6 exceeded the Korean standard, $30{\mu}g/{\ell}$ and this was about 0.7% of the total sample. On the basis of geology, uranium concentration appeared to be increased in order of biotite granodiorite > biotite granite > gneissoid granite. The highest level of uranium was 12.4 in average.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.1259-1265
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• 2020

A beta ray scanner was proposed for in-situ discrimination of beta and gamma ray radioactivity. This scanner is based on the principle that gamma and beta rays experience different changes in detection efficiency in scintillators with different geometries, especially with regard to the scintillator thickness. The ratios of the counting rates of gamma rays (R_gamma), beta rays (R_beta), and sample measurements (R_total) in a thick scintillator to those in a thin one are reported. The parameter X_thick, which represents the counting rate contributed by beta rays to the total counting rate in the thick scintillator, was derived as a function of those ratios. The values of R_gamma and R_beta for ⁶⁰Co and ⁹⁰Sr sources were estimated as 3.2 ± 0.057 and 0.99 ± 0.0049, respectively. The estimated beta ray contributions had relative standard deviations of 2.05-4.96%. The estimated range of the beta rays emitted from ⁹⁰Sr was 19 mm as per the Monte Carlo N-Particle simulation, and this value was experimentally verified. Homogeneous and surface contaminations of ⁶⁰Co and ⁹⁰Sr-⁹⁰Y were simulated for application of the proposed method. The counting rate contributed by the beta rays was derived and found to be proportional to the concentration of ⁹⁰Sr-⁹⁰Y contamination.