• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.180-188
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• 2013

The objectives of the study were to analyze chemical water quality and fish community structures in the downstreams of Geum River during 2004~2005. Water quality parameters showed that ionic dilution was evident during July~August due to a rainfall and river runoff by Asian monsoon. Mean concentrations of BOD showed a seasonal variation and were greater in the downstream than in the midstream. The total number of fish species observed was 34 (11 families) and 30.3% of them was Korean endemic species. The dominant species with > 20% of the total were Zacco platypus (25.9%) and Microphysogobio jeoni (21.5%) in the river. Exotic species observed was only one species, Carassius cuvieri with relative abundance of 1.8%. According to the structure analysis of fish community, species richness index was highest (3.714) in S6 and lowest in S4 (1.961), while species diversity index was highest in S2 (1.01) and lowest in S5 (0.507). Tolerant species dominated the fish community (49%), and the sensitive species were rare (4.4%), indicating a biological degradation of ecosystem. In the mean time, omnivore species was composed of 49% in the fish community and insectivore species was nearly same with the proportion of the omnivores.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.38 no.1 s.110
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• pp.105-117
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• 2005

During the period of heavy rain from 2002 to 2004, the characteristics of the inflow, temporal and spatial fluctuations of high turbid water according to thermal stratification were studied on the Andong Reservoir which is the largest artificial lake in the Nakdong River basin, Korea. Thermal stratification was formed in June. Its structure determined to the pathway of inflowing turbid water and has affected by the transportation of high turbid water. Regardless of the time and amount of inflow, the high turbid water showed the shape of underflow at the riverine zone, separated from the bottom at the transition zone and moved to the lacustrine zone with the shape of density current. The plunging point depended on the time and amount of inflow. The distributions of thermal stratification and DO concentrations were changed by inflowing discharge. Two thermoclines and minimum DO layers were found out existing at metalimnion in a specific time, respectively. The layer of high turbid water which formed with the thickness of 20 m at the maximum below the depth of 15 m moved toward dam. Not settled to the bottom, the newly formed layer was discharged through the intake-outlet and dispersed into all layers by the circulation in the fall.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.109-120
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• 2007

The information on flowpath, storage, residence time, and interactions of water and carbon transport in a catchment is the prerequisite to the understanding and predicting of water and carbon cycling in the mountainous landscapes of Korea. In this paper, along with some up-to-date results, we present the principal methods that are currently used in HydroKorea and CarboKorea research to obtain such information. Various catchment hydrological processes have been examined on the basis of the water table fluctuations, the end-member mixing model, the cross correlation analysis, and cosmogenic radioactive isotope activity. In the Gwangneung catchment, the contribution of surface discharge was relatively large, and the changes in the amount, intensity and patterns of precipitation affected both the flowpath and the mean residence time of water. Particularly during the summer monsoon, changes in precipitation patterns and hydrological processes in the catchment influenced the carbon cycle such that the persistent precipitation increased the discharge of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrated in the surface soil layer. The improved understanding of the hydrological processes presented in this report will enable a more realistic assessment of the effects of climate changes on the water resource management and on the carbon cycling in forest catchments.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.41 no.5 s.116
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• pp.527-544
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• 2006

This study provides a definition of heat waves, which indicate the conditions of strong sultriness in summer, appropriate to Korea and intends to clarify long term(1973-2006) averaged spatial and temporal patterns of annual frequency of heat waves with respect to their intensity. Based on examination of the Korean mortality rate changes due to increase of apparent temperature under hot and humid summer conditions, three consecutive days with at least $32.5^{\circ}C,\;35.5^{\circ}C,\;38.5^{\circ}C,\;and\;41.5^{\circ}C$ of daily maximum Heat Index are defined as the Hot Spell(HS), the Heat Wave(HW), the Strong Heat Wave(SHW), and the Extreme Heat Wave(EHW), respectively. The annual frequency of all categories of heat waves is relatively low in high-elevated regions or on islands adjacent to seas. In contrast, the maximum annual frequency of heat waves during the study period as well as annual average frequency are highest in interior, low-elevated regions along major rivers in South Korea, particularly during the Changma Break period(between late July and mid-August). There is no obvious increasing or decreasing trend in the annual total frequency of all categories of heat waves for the study period However, the maximum annual frequencies of HS days at each weather station were recorded mainly in the 1970s, while most of maximum frequency records of both the HW and the SHW at individual weather stations were observed in the 1990s. It is also revealed that when heat waves occur in South Korea high humidity as well as high temperature contributes to increasing the heat wave intensity by $4.3-9.5^{\circ}C$. These results provide a useful basis to help develop a heat wave warning system appropriate to Korea.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.321-327
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• 2006

In Korea, there is a growing competitive for water resources between industrial, domestic and agricultural consumer, and the environment as many other OECD countries. The demand on water use is also affecting aquatic ecosystems particularly where withdrawals are in excess of minimum environmental needs for rivers, lakes and wetland habits. OECD developed three indicators related to water use by the agriculture in above contexts : the first is a water use intensity indicator, which is expressed as the quantity or share of agricultural water use in total national water utilization; the second is a water stress indicator, which is expressed as the proportion of rivers (in length) subject to diversion or regulation for irrigation without reserving a minimum of limiting reference flow; and the third is a water use efficiency indicator designated as the technical and the economic efficiency. These indicators have different meanings in the aspect of water resource conservation and sustainable water use. So, it will be more significant that the indicators should reflect the intrinsic meanings of them. The problem is that the aspect of an overall water flow in the agro-ecosystem and recycling of water use not considered in the assessment of agricultural water use needed for calculation of these water use indicators. Namely, regional or meteorological characteristics and site-specific farming practices were not considered in the calculation of these indicators. In this paper, we tried to calculate water use indicators suggested in OECD and to modify some other indicators considering our situation because water use pattern and water cycling in Korea where paddy rice farming is dominant in the monsoon region are quite different from those of semi-arid regions. In the calculation of water use intensity, we excluded the amount of water restored through the ground from the total agricultural water use because a large amount of water supplied to the farm was discharged into the stream or the ground water. The resultant water use intensity was 22.9% in 2001. As for water stress indicator, Korea has not defined nor monitored reference levels of minimum flow rate for rivers subject to diversion of water for irrigation. So, we calculated the water stress indicator in a different way from OECD method. The water stress indicator was calculated using data on the degree of water storage in agricultural water reservoirs because 87% of water for irrigation was taken from the agricultural water reservoirs. Water use technical efficiency was calculated as the reverse of the ratio of irrigation water to a standard water requirement of the paddy rice. The efficiency in 2001 was better than in 1990 and 1998. As for the economic efficiency for water use, we think that there are a lot of things to be taken into considerations to make a useful indicator to reflect socio-economic values of agricultural products resulted from the water use. Conclusively, site-specific, regional or meteorogical characteristics as in Korea were not considered in the calculation of water use indicators by methods suggested in OECD(Volume 3, 2001). So, it is needed to develop a new indicators for the indicators to be more widely applicable in the world.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.34 no.1 s.93
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• pp.1-8
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• 2001

During April 1993 to November 1994, cations, anions, and conductivity were analyzed to examine how summer monsoon influences the ionic content of Taechung Reservoir, Korea. Interannual variability of ionic content reflected hydrological characteristics between the two years(high-flood year in 1993 vs. draught year in 1994). Cations, anions and conductivity were lowest during peak inflow in 1993 and highest during a drought in 1994. Floods in 1993 markedly decreased total salinity as a result of reduced Ca$^{2+}$ and HCO$_{3}\;^{-}$ and produced extreme spatial heterogeneity (i.e., longitudinal, vertical, and horizontal variation) in ionic concentrations. The dominant process modifying the longitudinal (the headwaters-to-downlake) and vertical (top-to-bottom) patterns in salinity was an interflow current during the 1993 monsoon. The interflow water plunged near a 27${\sim}$37 km-location (from the dam) of the mid-lake and passed through the 10${\sim}$30m stratum of the reservoir, resulting in an isolation of epilimnetic high conductivity water (>100 ${\mu}$S/cm) from advected river water with low conductivity (65${\sim}$75 ${\mu}$S/cm), During postmonsoon 1993, the factors regulating salinity differed spatially; salinity of downlake markedly declined as a result of dilution through the mixing of lake water with river water, whereas in the headwaters it increased due to enhanced CaCO$_{3}$ (originated from limestone/metamorphic rock) of groundwaters entering the reservoir. This result suggests an importance of the basin geology on ion compositions with hydrological characteristics. In 1994, salinity was markedly greater (p<0.001) relative to 1993 and ionic dilution did not occur during the monsoon due to reduced inflow. Overall data suggest that the primary factor influencing seasonal ionic concentrations and compositions in this system is the dilution process depending on the intensity of monsoon rainfall.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.779-797
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• 2016

A calibrated hydrological model is a useful tool for quantifying the impacts of the climate variations and land use/land cover changes on sediment load, water quality and runoff. In the rainy season each year, the Xe Bang Fai river basin is provisionally flooded because of typhoons, the frequency and intensity of which are sensitive to ongoing climate change. Severe heavy rainfall has continuously occurred in this basin area, often causing severe floods at downstream of the Xe Bang Fai river basin. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the climate change impact on river discharge using a Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model based on future climate change scenarios. In this study, the simulation of hydrological river discharge is used by SWAT model, covering a total area of $10,064km^2$ in the central part of country. The hydrological model (baseline) is calibrated and validated for two periods: 2001-2005 and 2006-2010, respectively. The monthly simulation outcomes during the calibration and validation model are good results with $R^2$ > 0.9 and ENS > 0.9. Because of ongoing climate change, three climate models (IPSL CM5A-MR 2030, GISS E2-R-CC 2030 and GFDL CM3 2030) indicate that the rainfall in this area is likely to increase up to 10% during the summer monsoon season in the near future, year 2030. As a result of these precipitation increases, the SWAT model predicts rainy season (Jul-Aug-Sep) river discharge at the Xebangfai@bridge station will be about $800m^3/s$ larger than the present. This calibrated model is expected to contribute for preventing flood disaster risk and sustainable development of Laos

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.35 no.3 s.99
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• pp.152-159
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• 2002

The seasonal variations of nitrifying bacterial population sampled from 3 sites in Moon-Chon reservoir were analyzed by in situ hybridization with fluorescently labeled rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes from August 2000 until July 2001. In addition, physico-chemical parameters such as temperature, pH, chi-a and DOC were measured to determine correlations between those factors and the size of nitrifying bacterial populations. Total bacterial numbers varied in the range of $0.8{\sim}1.5{\times}10^6\;cells/ml$ independent of sites and had the maximal values in March at all 3 stations. The ratio of eubacteria to total bacteria ranged from 44.9% to 79.5%, and the ratio of each nitrifying bacteria to eubacterial numbers reached only $1.0{\sim}7.4%$. The variations of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria ranged from $1.1{\times}10^4$ to $3.0{\times}10^4\;cells/ml$ without noticeable peak values whereas those of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria varied in $1.3{\sim}5.7{\times}10^4\;cells/ml$ with the increasing tendency in winter regardless of the sites. Moreover it was observed that the numbers of nitrite-oxidizing bacteria were higher than those of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria. Total bacterial numbers correlated with water temperature (r = 0.355, p<0.05) and DOC (r = 0.58G, p<0.01) positively whereas nitrite-oxidizing bacteria correlated with temperature (r = -0.416, p<0.05) and pH (r = -0.568, p = 0.001) negatively. In addition, DOC represented good correlations with eubacterial numbers (r = 0.448, p<0.01). These results indicate that temperature, DOC and pH might be one of the main factors affecting variations of bacterial populations in the aquatic ecosystem. It was also suggested that FISH method is a useful tool for detection of slow growing nitrifying bacteria.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.549-556
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• 2017

Rivers continuously transport terrestrial organic carbon matter to the estuary and the ocean, and they play a critical role in productivity and biodiversity in the marine ecosystem as well as the global carbon cycle. The amount of terrestrial organic carbon transporting from the rivers to ocean is an essential piece of information, not only for the marine ecosystem management but also the carbon budget within catchment. However, this phenomenon is still not well understood. Most large rivers in Korea have a well-established national monitoring system of the river flow and the TOC (Total Organic Carbon) concentration from the mountain to the river mouth, which are fundamental for estimating the amount of the TOC flux. We estimated the flux of the total terrestrial organic carbon of five large rivers which flow out to the Yellow Sea, using the data of the national monitoring system (the monthly mean TOC concentration and the monthly runoff of river flow). We quantified the annual TOC flux of the five rivers, showing their results in the following order: the Han River ($18.0{\times}10^9gC\;yr^{-1}$)>>Geum River ($5.9{\times}10^9gC\;yr^{-1}$)>Yeongsan River ($2.6{\times}10^9gC\;yr^{-1}$)>Sumjin River ($2.0{\times}10^9gC\;yr^{-1}$)>>Tamjin River ($0.2{\times}10^9gC\;yr^{-1}$). The amount of the Han River, which is the highest in the Korean rivers, corresponds to be 4% of the annual total TOC flux of in the Yellow River, and moreover, to be 0.6% of Yangtze River.