Prolonged Turbidity of the Lower Nakdong River in 2003

The Nakdong River, which lies in a monsoon climate zone with warm rainy summers and cold dry winters, is a typical ecosystem showing the attributes of a regulated river. In 2003, the total annual rainfall (1,805 mm) was higher than the average of the past nine years from 1994 to 2002 (1,250 mm). In September a powerful typhoon, Maemi, caused a big impact on the limnology of the river for over two months. Among the limnological variables, turbidity in 2003 (37.4 ${\pm}$ 94.1 NTU, n = 54) was higher than the annual average for ten years (18.5 ${\pm}$ 2.3 NTU, n = 486) in the lower part of the river (Mulgum: RK 28). Furthermore, physical disturbance (e.g. stream bank erosion within channel) in the upstream of the Imha Dam (RK ca. 350; river distance in kilometer from the estuary barrage) in the upper part of the river was a source of high turbidity, and impacted on the limnological dynamics along a 350 km section of the middle to lower part of the river. After the typhoon, high turbidity persisted more than two months in the late autumn from September to November in 2003. Flow regulation and the extended duration of turbid water are superimposed on the template of existing main channel hydroecology, which may cause spatial changes in the population dynamics of plankton in the river.