• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.56-67
• /
• 2006

Trends of variation in groundwater levels, electrical conductivities and water temperatures obtained from the national groundwater monitoring stations (95 shallow and 169 deep wells) of Korea were evaluated. For the analysis, both parametric (linear regression) and non-parametric (Mann-Kendall test, Sen's test) methods were adopted. Results of linear regression analysis indicated that about 50% of the monitoring wells showed increasing trends of groundwater levels, electrical conductivities, and water temperatures and the others showed decreasing trends. However, the non-parametric analyses with monthly median values revealed that $14.8{\sim}20.0%$ of water levels were decreased, $24.2{\sim}36.9%$ of electrical conductivities were increased, and $27.4{\sim}32.5%$ of water temperatures were increased at a confidence level of 99%. Highly proportions of increasing or decreasing trends were unexpected and they resulted from the relatively short term of data collection (maximum 6 years). Meanwhile, the investigation of groundwater around the national groundwater monitoring stations showed that the decreasing or increasing trends of water levels, electrical conductivities, themselves, didn't indicate directly groundwater hazards such as groundwater depletion or groundwater contamination. Both the values and variation rates (slopes) of water level, electrical conductivity and temperature in the longer period are considered simultaneously. This study is the first comprehensive work in analyzing trends of groundwater data obtained from the national groundwater monitoring stations. Based on this study, the periodical and regular analysis of groundwater data is essentially required to grasp the overall variational trend of groundwater resources in the country.