• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.789-800
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• 2023

A vascular flora survey was conducted in 2020 to identify flora and analyze changes in the numbers of vascular flora species over the past 10 years at Gongju-weir (GW) and Baekje-weir (BW) in the Geumgang River, Republic of Korea. A total of 241 taxa were found in GW and 279 taxa in BW, and 208 taxa (88% of total taxa) were common species. The distribution of invasive species in GW and BW were seven and eight taxa, respectively. Rare plants were not identified in any of the weirs. The Poaceae family dominated in terms of number of species, followed by Asteraceae, Legumes, Cyperaceae, and Polygonaceae. Additionally, Therophytes accounted for a high proportion of Raunkiaer life forms. The numbers of vascular plant species, total taxa, naturalized plants, and invasive species have been increasing over the last 10 years. However, long-term alterations in invasive species before and after the opening of the weirs increased much more significantly in the partially opened BW than in the fully opened GW. These results indicate that the degree of barrier opening does not affect the invasion and establishment of non-native species.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.225-236
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• 2021

The master plan for the Four Rivers Restoration Project (June 2009) was devised, the procedure of pre-environmental review (June 2009) and environmental impact assessment (Nov. 2009), and post-environmental impact survey were implemented, and 4 times audits also inspected. and finally the Ministry of Environment's Four Rivers Investigation and Evaluation Planning Committee proposed the dismantling or partial dismantling of the five weirs of the Geum River and Yeongsan River. But controversies and conflicts are still ongoing. Therefore, this study intend to reestablish the management plan for the four major rivers by reviewing and analyzing the process so far. The results are as follows. First, a cost-benefit analysis should be performed by comparing the water quality impact of weir operation and weir opening. Therefore, it is inevitably difficult to conduct cost-benefit analysis. Second, according to the results of cost-benefit analysis on the dismantling of the Geum River and the Yeongsan River, the dismantling of the weir and the regular sluice gate opening was decided. However, there is a problem in the validity of the decision to dismantle the weir because the cost-benefit analysis for maintaining the weir is not carried out. Third, looking at the change in water quality of 16 weirs before and after the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project, COD and Chl-a were generally deteriorated, and BOD, SS, T-N, and T-P improved. However, in the cost-benefit analysis related to water quality at the time of weir dismantling, only COD items were targeted. Therefore, the cost of BOD, SS, T-N, and T-P items improved after the project were not reflected in the cost-benefit analysis of dismantling weirs, so the water quality benefits were exaggerated. Fourth, in the case of Gongju weir and Juksan weir, most of them are movable weirs, so opening the weir alone can have the same effect as dismantling when the water quality deteriorates. Since the same effect can be expected, there is little need to dismantle the weirs. Fifth, in order to respond to frequent droughts and floods, it is desirable to secure the agricultural water supply capacity to the drought areas upstream of the four majorrivers by constructing a waterway connected to the weir. At present it is necessary to keep weirs rather than dismantling them.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.705-713
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• 2020

The present study investigated the temporal changes of river habitats caused by construction and operation of the three large weirs (Sejong, Gongju, and Baekje) in the Geum River. High resolution satellite imagery taken during three periods (preconstruction, before and after gate operation) were used for habitat analysis. We divided bar area into eight habitat types in addition to water area. Then, we identified the nine habitat types from the satellite imagery and estimated each habitat area. Our results show that after weir construction, large bar areas were dramatically decreased and bareland was nearly absent post gate-operation in all three weirs. However, total bar area and bareland were again increased distinctively soon after weir opening events, especially in the uppermost weir, the Sejongbo. These results suggest that weir opening operations provide a relatively simple channel of more diverse through the process of increasing bar area in a river channel.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.64-78
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• 2021

This study was conducted to find out the effect of the construction and operation of river-crossing structures on the habitat landscape characteristics in the Geum-gang River, South Korea. A total of three study reaches were selected in the downstream of the Daecheong Dam: the Buyong-ri reach, which is a control that is not affected by the construction and operation of the weir of the Four Rivers Project and Sejong-bo Weir reach and Gongju-bo Weir reach of the upper and lower sections of each weir that are affected by the weir construction and operation. The habitat type was classified, and then the structural characteristics of the landscape were analyzed using aerial photographs taken before and after the construction of the Daecheong Dam, before and after the construction of the weir, and before and after the weir gate operation. After the construction of Daecheong Dam in Geum River, the area of the bare land greatly decreased, and the area of grassland and woodland increased in the downstream of the dam. In addition, the patch number in the river landscape increased, the patch size decreased, and the landscape shape index and the habitat diversity increased. Therefore, after the construction of the dam, the bare land habitat was changed to a vegetated habitat, and the habitat was fragmented and diversified in the downstream of the dam. After the construction of the weirs, the area of open water increased by 18% in the Sejong-bo reach and by 90% in the Gongju-bo reach, and the landscape shape index of the open water decreased by 32% in the Sejong-bo reach and by 35% in the Gongju-bo reach, and the habitat diversity index decreased to 25% in the Sejong-bo reach and to 24% in the Gongju-bo reach. Therefore, the open water habitat was expanded, the shape of the habitat was simplified, and the habitat diversity decreased according to the construction of the weirs. After water-gate opening of the weir, the bare land that disappeared after the construction of the weir reappeared, and the landscape shape index and habitat diversity index increased in both terrestrial and open water habitats. Therefore, it was found that the landscape characteristics of the river habitats were restored to the pre-construction of the weir by the operation of the weir gate. The effect of weir gate opening was delayed in the downstream than in the upstream of the weir. Although the characteristics of the landscape structure in the river habitat changed due to the construction of the river-crossing structures, it is thought that proper technology development for the ecological operation of the structures is necessary as the habitat environments can be restored by the operation of these structures.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2020

A river bed which is submerged in water at high flow and becomes part of the river at low flow, serves as a bridge between the river and the land. The channel bar creates a unique ecosystem with vegetation adapted to the particular environment and the water pool forms a wetland that plays a very important role in the environment. To evaluate anthropogenic impacts on the river bed in the Middle Yeongsangang River, the fluvial landforms in the stream channel were analyzed using multi-temporal remotely-sensed images. In the aerial photograph of 2005 taken before the construction of the large weirs, oxbow lakes, mid-channel bars, point bars, and natural wetlands between the artificial levees were identified. Multiple bars divided the flow of stream water to cause the braided pattern in a particular section. After the construction of the Seungchon weir, aerial photographs of 2013 and 2015 revealed that most of the fluvial landforms disappeared due to the dredging of its riverbed and water level control(maintenance at 7.5El.m). Sentinel-2 images were analyzed to identify differences between before and after the opening of weir gate. Change detection was performed with the near infrared and shortwave infrared spectral bands to effectively distinguish water surfaces from land. As a result, water surface area of the main stream of the Yeongsangang River decreased by 40% from 1.144km² to 0.692km². A large mid-channel bar that has been deposited upstream of the weir was exposed during low water levels, which shows the obvious influence of weir on the river bed. Newly formed unvegetated point bars that were deposited on the inside of a meander bend were identified from the remotely sensed images. As the maintenance period of the weir gate opening was extended, various habitats were created by creating pools and riffles around the channel bars. Considering the ecological and hydrological functions of the river bed, it is expected that the increase in bar areas through weir gate opening will reduce the artificial interference effect of the weir.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.135-142
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• 2023

A various technology of remote sensing and image analysis are applied to study landscape changes and their influencing factors in stream corridors. We developed a method to detect landscape changes over time by calculating the optical index using multispectral images taken from satellites at various time points, calculating the threshold to delineate the boundaries of water bodies, and creating binarized maps into land and water areas. This method was applied to the upstream reach of the weirs in the Geumgang River to track changes in the sandbar formed by the opening of the weir gate. First, we collected multispectral images with a resolution of 10 m × 10 m taken from the Sentinel-2 satellite at various times before and after the opening of the dam in the Geumgang River. The normalized difference water index (NDWI) was calculated using the green light and near-infrared bands from the collected images. The Otsu's threshold of NDWI calculated to delineate the boundary of the water body ranged from -0.0573 to 0.1367. The boundary of the water area determined by remote sensing matched the boundary in the actual image. A map binarized into water and land areas was created using NDWI and the Otsu's threshold. According to these results of the developed method, it was estimated that a total of 379.7 ha of new sandbar was formed by opening the three weir floodgates from 2017 to 2021 in the longitudinal range from Baekje Weir to Daecheong Dam on the Geumgang River. The landscape detection method developed in this study is evaluated as a useful method that can obtain objective results with few resources over a wide spatial and temporal range.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.194-205
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• 2022

Sandbars formed by sediment transportation and sedimentation are some of the most important habitats for specific wildlife and they provide an aesthetic landscape in streams. The purpose of this study was to understand the successional process of the colonization and development of early vegetation over time on sandbars exposed by the opening of a gate at a downstream weir. We selected the following four study sites in the Geumgang River, South Korea: three weir-upstream sites with different gate-opening times and a control site that was not affected by weir operation. Changes in the structural characteristics and spatial distribution of the riparian vegetation on the sandbars exposed after opening the gate at the weir were surveyed according to the different exposure periods of the sandbars at the study sites. The newly formed sandbars accounted for more than 33% of the area of the existing floodplain in the three weir-upstream sites of the Geumgang River after opening the gate at the weir. Nine main plant communities were distributed on the exposed sandbars. These communities were classified as annual mesophytic, perennial hydrophytic, perennial hygrophytic, subtree, and tree vegetation based on their species traits. As the duration of exposure of the sandbar increased, the area of the bare sandbar and the annual herbaceous and perennial hydrophytic communities decreased, and the areas occupied by perennial hygrophytic, subtree, and tree communities increased. Changes in vegetation on the sandbar were classified into three types of succession according to the condition of the aquatic habitat before the gate-opening and the degree of physical disturbance caused by the water flow after the gate-opening. The types of succession were: 1) succession starting from hydrophytes in the lentic aquatic zone, 2) succession starting from annual herbaceous hygrophytes in the lotic aquatic zone, and 3) willow-dominated succession in the disturbed channel side. Our results suggested that the dynamics of successional changes in vegetation should be considered during weir operation to ecologically manage the habitats and landscape of the fluvial landforms, including sandbars in streams.