• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.281-291
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• 2009

In Total Water Pollutant Load Management System of Korea, unit load approach based on land register data is currently used for the estimation of non-point pollutant load. However, a problem raised that land register data could not always reflect the actual land surface coverages which determine runoff characteristics of non-point pollution sources. As a way to overcome this, we tried to establish quantitative relationships between the aerial images (0.4m resolution) which reflect actual land surface coverages and the land registration maps according to the 19 major designated land-use categories in Kyeongan watershed. Analyses showed different relationships according to the land-use categories. Only a few land-use categories including forestry, road and river showed essentially identical and some categories such as orchard, parking lot and sport utility site showed no relationships at all between image data and land register data. Except for the two cases, all the other categories showed statistically significant linear relationships between image data and land register data. The analyses indicate that using high resolution aerial maps is a better way to estimate non-point pollutant load. If the aerial maps are not available, application of the linear relationships as conversion factors of land register data to image data could be an possible option to estimate non-point pollutant loads for the specific land-use categories in Kyeongan watershed.