• Food Science and Industry
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.34-44
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• 2016

Given that fermented foods, such as kimchi and doenjang, are main food sources for high sodium intake in Korea, there have been needs to develop sodium-reduced kimchi and doenjang with the proper quality. However, small and medium sized business could not actively develop the sodium-reduced products due to lack of techniques and information as well as economical reasons. The most important aspects is to address food safety issues including microbial contaminations in sodium-reduced foods. Hurdle Technology, physical, biological, chemical control technique, would have to be preferentially considered to increase the hygiene safety standards in entire processing steps including raw materials, process water, manufacturing environments, and so on. Once the food hygiene level is stable, the next challenges are to improve the taste of the sodium reduced-products as well as to packaging and storage technologies. The development of a variety of sodium-reduced fermented foods would result in significant mitigation of sodium intake by Korean. This report provides the directions to develop sodium-reduced kimchi, doenjang or pickled food products for small and medium sized business, based on the technical consulting results of sodium reduction project supported by Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in 2015.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.1389-1402
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• 2013

This paper focuses on the impacts of waste dumping on inorganic nutrients in the dumping area of the Yellow Sea, and the effect of an governmental regulation of pollution in dumping areas. The environmental variables and parameters of the dumping and reference areas in the Yellow Sea were measured during July 2009 and analyzed. In addition, the analyzed data for inorganic nutrients over the last 10 years were obtained from the Korea Coast Guard (KCG) and the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI). The chemical environment of the study area revealed increases in concentrations of inorganic nutrients, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), and Volatile Suspended Solids (VSS) in the bottom layer. On the contrary, the pH level was decreased. Most notably, the time series data of inorganic nutrients showed gradual increase over time in the dumping area, and thus, the oligotrophic waters trend toward eutrophic waters. The increases appears to be due to the disposal of large amounts of organic waste. In recent times, the wastes disposed at the area were largely comprised of livestock wastewater, and food processing waste water. The liquefied waste, which contains an abundance of nutrients, causes a sharp increase in concentrations of inorganic nitrogen in the dumping area. On the one hand, the dumping sites have been deteriorated to such an extent that pollution has become a social problem. Consequentially, the government had a regulatory policy for improvement of marine environmental since 2007 in the dumping area. Hence, the quality of marine water in the dumping site has improved.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.804-812
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• 2012

This study contemplated domestic and other country's effluent limitation standards and suggested a methodology to establish technology-base limitation value. Current effluent limitation regulates industrial point sources discriminated by discharge flow rate and by regional distinction in Korea. Discharged $BOD_5$ load from large-scale plants(flow rate above $2,000\;m^3/day)$ exceeds 50% of overall industrial wastewater, which present rationale for discrimination based on plant size. However, regional distinction and pollutant- specific regulation might be insufficient to meet practical effectiveness of wastewater management policy, due to the nearly same limitation. Water quality data and treatment methods were investigated in hospital industry. And their distribution of effluent $BOD_5$ concentrations was statistically analyzed to suggest limitation value. Effluent $BOD_5$ concentrations showed lognormal distribution and $95^{th}$ percentile was corresponded to 87.9 mg/L, which could be suggested as tentative effluent limitation in hospital industry. The $95^{th}$ percentile of log-transformed distribution showed similar value of 86.5 mg/L. This study demonstrated reasonable methodology for establishing effluent limitation reflecting wastewater characteristic and treatment technology in separately categorized industry.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.74-84
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• 2017

Soil erosion is often extreme in Korea due to high rainfall intensities and steep slopes, and climate change has also increased the risk of erosion. Despite its significane, erosion-induced soil organic carbon (SOC) emission and water resource loss are not well understood, along with the lack of an integrated surface soil erosion protection policy. Therefore, to design adequate protection policies, land users, scientists, engineers and decision makers need proper information about surface soil and watershed properties related to greenhouse gas emission potential and water conservation capability, respectively. Assuming the total soil erosion of $346Tg\;yr^{-1}$, soil organic matter (SOM) content of 2% (58% of SOM is SOC), and mineralization rate of 20% of the displaced carbon, erosion-induced carbon emission could reach $800Gg\;C\;yr^{-1}$. Also the available water capacity of the soil was estimated to be 15.8 billion tons, which was 14 times higher than the yearly water supply demand in Seoul, Korea. Therefore, in order to prevent of soil erosion, this study proposes a three-stage plan for surface soil erosion prevention: 1) classification of soil erosion risk and scoring of surface soil quality, 2) selection of priority areas for conservation and best management practices (BMP), and 3) application of BMP and post management.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.469-482
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• 2018

This research has developed the criteria and index for systematically and objectively assessing the quality of river water by fixing the various factors that affect Gyeongin ARA waterway's water quality through analysis with the Delphi Technique and analytic hierarchy program (AHP) Method. Based on the results, the highest criteria are, in order of importance, physical and environmental factors 28%, administrative factors 26%, natural fixed factors 26% and finally, cultural and social factors 20%. The three dimensions of the criteria show that for the internal physical and environmental factors, the most important are the loss of self-purification capacity, and the external factors are Gulpocheon and the sludge deposit due to Gyulhweon-weir the bridge. The facility factor in management was affected by the coagulation and waste water disposal facilities. The problem for the policy and institutional factors was seen in the regulatory area. The aquatic ecology/ point pollution source for the natural fixed factors show that it is due to the polluted water of Gulpo-cheon and the living environment/ non-point pollution source is shown through the inflow water from other rivers. Cultural and social factors show that the economical causes were due to the cargo and passenger flight operations and the external factors of having a lack of sewage treatment equipment have an importance effect. In order to estimate the order of priority through logical evidence and objectivity, future research must be continued on the evaluation indexes to measure the specific methodology and technique needed to improve the Gyeongin ARA Waterway.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.47-70
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• 2007

In recent days, people's requests about water resources have been developed from managing quality and quantity of water resources to forming a river environment by restoring normal function of river. To meet these requests, it is necessary to establish the concept of environmental flows. In Korea, the environmental flows was introduced as a concept of river maintenance flows in a sense of river management. The function of river maintenance flows has been changed according to what the major issue is in that age such as navigation, water quality, and prevention of saline water intrusion. As the assesment of river maintenance flows in Korea focused mainly on the function of water usage oriented in human, it could not be defined and emphasized in a sense of ecosystem as a pure meaning of environmental flows. And while the existing river maintenance flows are included the assesment of flows, there is not a practical procedure to supply them and the efficient management in a sense of environment is not performed. The environmental flows should be further developed from the river maintenance flows and changed to a new concept focused on maintaining the health of ecosystem. In other words, the environmental flows should be defined as a necessary flows for maintaining the function of river and its original value, and be considered on the same or higher value of flows for maintenance of economic activity, recreation, and power generation.

• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.29-36
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• 1992

Among the rivers in Korea, the Han River is the largest, most important one, which runs through the Seoul metropolitan region in the west toward the yellow sea. In the Han River basin there live as many as 17.1 mil. people including appr, 11 mil, citizens in Seoul. The Seoul Metropolitan region, already containing appr. 40% of the nation's total populating, expectedly poses an ever-growing polluting burden to the Han River. Due to Korea's vigorous industrialization and heavy urbanization in the past quarter century, water pollution was observed to be increasing in the Han River until the mid-1980's, but thereafter the Han River began to improve little by little by virtue of the government's massive investment and all-out efforts in water preservation. Public awareness on the importance of environmental protection is increasing unprecedentedly. With a view to meeting people's growing demand for clean water and pleasant environment, the government established the "Comprehensive Mid-Term Environmental Conservation Plan" (1992∼1993) in 1991. According to the plan, 1,315 bil.won(1.7 bil.us$ ) is to be poured into the Han River Basin to install 113 water pollutant abatement plants including 43 treatment facilities. To successfully cope with the future's challenging need for the environmentally sound sustainable development, a variety of measures and an array of policies are going to be incorporated with emphasis on, -redistributing such polluting sources as population and industries -tightening control of the water pollutant discharge -restricting the pollution-accompanying land use -enhancing the assimilation capacity of the river -stirring up the public awareness and participation in the environment protection We hopefully anticipate that with those e(forts the Han River will improve as drawn in the attached "1996's Envisioned Han River Quality".

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.461-467
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• 2009

This paper provides two case studies of environmental impacts with socio-economic values. The first case is on flood protection levees conducted from 2003 to 2004 in Phu Tan district, An Giang province. The impacts were found by comparing full flood protection levees area (FFPL) to non-full flood protection levees area (NFFPL). Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools per each group of rich, middle, and poor people were used to list the impacts. Then, major impacts were selected by ranking and interviewing 60 households per site, and assessed by Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) in rice production from 1996 to 2002 between two areas. The tested research indicated moving system of NFFPL to that of FFPL lost about 11 million VND/ha/year. The second case is on impacts of Penaeid shrimp farming conducted in Duyen Hai District, Tra Vinh Province in 2004-2005. Ninety households and 12 local officials were interviewed. Four PRAs were conducted and 36 water samples were taken inside and outside shrimp pond to measure values of DO, COD, Fe total, TSS, N-$NO_3{^-}$, N-$NH_4{^+}$, P-$PO{_4}^{3-}$, and Chlorophyll-a. Research results showed only 36.7% of the households got profit from shrimp farming. Highest financial efficiency was 0.72 for the semi-intensive system. Tested water indicators showed surface water quality did not match Vietnamese standard for surface water in coastal area (TCVN 5943-1995) and in rain. The water was very muddy and contaminated by organic aluminum. Summarily, the impacts were clarified more obviously via adding socio-economic values to assessment. Importantly, the values were transformed to household's income which is an indicator for policy-makers to consider the impacts obviously. Besides, data of different group of people impacted are cases contributing to consideration of the impacts in an appropriate social level.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.1119-1126
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• 2017

Quality characteristics of commercially available soybean and mung-bean flours in Korea were evaluated relative to product information such as bean content, price, chromaticity, proximate composition, water binding capacity, swelling power and solubility. Origin of raw materials was 23 in domestic products and 19 in imported products. The price of the product was 3.48 times more for raw soybean flour, 3.34 times more for fried soybean flour, and 3.47 times more for mung bean flour compared to imported soybean. In the domestic products, the lightness of raw soybean flour was higher than roasted soybean flour. The redness and yellowness of roasted soybean flour were higher than raw soybean flour. Moisture content of raw soybean flour was higher than roasted soybean flour, and crude fat, crude protein and carbohydrate content were higher in imported soybean flour. Ash and crude protein contents of mung bean were slightly higher than imported products. Water binding capacity of roasted soybean flour in domestic products was higher than raw soy flour, and there was no significant difference in solubility and swelling power. Correlation between quality characteristics of commercially available soybean and mung-bean flours products was found to be highly significant among measured items, except for solubility.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.551-556
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• 2019

Recently, due to the fact that the mineral content in the wash water of the GAP-certified melon exceeds the GAP wash water standards, there are cases where the certification cannot be maintained. Therefore, agricultural industry demand requesting relaxation of the inorganic elements standard for water quality has been increasing, taking into account the consumption characteristics of Korean melon, which is eaten after removing the peel. This study was conducted to evaluate the human risks of four inorganic materials (fluorine, arsenic, iron and manganese) based on the water quality data of 142 samples of groundwater that was used for washing GAP-certified Korean melon in Seongju area from 2017 to 2019. As a result, the HQ of four minerals in Koreans who consumed groundwater used for washing GAP-certified Korean melons in the Seongju area was below 0.10 on average. In particular, in the case of iron and manganese which are esthetic influence substances, the average HQ was 0.00. The overexposure group showed 0.01, which was lower than the HQ (average 0.01, overexposure group 0.03) of the group that consumed Korean melon. Based on all the results, even if the groundwater of the Seongju area is used to wash GAP-certified Korean melon, the impact from these four inorganic materials, including iron and manganese, for Korean population consuming Korean melon will be minimal.