• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.55-63
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• 2007

PCDD/Fs monitoring was carried out to estimate the contamination level in soil samples taken in the vicinity of the various incinerators throughout South Korea from July 2003 to December 2004. The levels ranged from N.D. to 130.39 pg I-TEQ/g (d.w.) with an average concentration of 11.38 pg I-TEQ/g (d.w.). The level of PCDD/Fs in this study is similar to that of other countries. Overall, the highest mean concentration in the soil was found at 250 m from the stack. In addition, the flue gases were analyzed in order to obtain the congener profiles of the PCDD/Fs emitted from the incinerators. The concentration of I-TEQ in the flue gas ranged from 0.33 to 21.5 ng TEQ/$Sm^3$. These levels were much lower than the concentration stipulated in the Korean emission criterion(40 ng TEQ/$Sm^3$ until 2005). The comparison of the congener patterns using cluster analysis showed that the incinerators and PCP are sources of PCDD/Fs in the soil samples according to the sampling point, but the possibility of unidentified combustion sources and vehicles exists in the case of complex industrial regions.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.529-540
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• 2012

Objective: This research was performed to evaluate the state of oil pollution in an area surrounding a railway station that has over 100 years of business history as a railway station in S City, Korea. The amount of polluted soil was estimated, and the target area for remediation was assessed in this study to restore the oil-polluted area. Methods: To accomplish this aim, five observation wells were installed for the sampling of groundwater, and soil was sampled at 33 points. Electric resistance studies and a trench investigation were undertaken to understand the geological conditions of the site, and the groundwater movement in this area was simulated by MODFLOW. Physiochemical analyses were conducted to determine the quality of the groundwater and the current state of oil pollution influenced by that of the soil. Results: The mean level of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) in this area was 1,059 mg/kg, and the area for remediation was determined to be 7,610 mg/kg. Levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) were determined to be under the legal standard. Conclusion: In terms of depth, the biggest area polluted by TPH found was between 0 and 1 m from ground level, and the affected area was 5,900 $m^3$. TPHs were not detected in groundwater. Diesel and lubricating oil were the main causes of TPH pollution at this railway station.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.114-116
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• 2005

Natural attenuation has been actively studied and often selected as final clean-up process in remediation of contaminated ground-water and soil for the last decade. Accordingly, understanding of natural processes affecting the fate and transport of contaminants in the subsurface becomes important for a success of implementation of the natural remediation strategy, Contaminant advection and diffusion processes in the unsaturated zone are naturally related to environmental changes in the atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure changes affecting the transport of contaminants in the subsurface are investigated in this study. Moisture content, trichloroethylene (TCE) concentration, temperature, and pressure variations in the subsurface were measured for the July, August, November, and December 2001 at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey. These data were used for a one-phase flow and one-component transport model in simulating the soil-gas flow and accordingly the TCE transport in the subsurface in accordance with the atmosphere pressure variations at the surface. The soil-gas velocities during the sampling periods varied with a magnitude of $10^{-6}\;to\;10^{-7}\;m\;s^{-1}$ at land surface. The TCE advection fluxes at land surface were several orders of magnitude smaller than the TCE diffusion fluxes. A sensitivy analysis indicated that advection fluxes were more sensitive to changes in geo-environmental conditions compared to diffusion fluxes. Of all the parameters investigated in this study, moisture content has the most significant effect on TCE advection and diffusion fluxes.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.63-74
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• 2015

This study investigated the influence of probabilistic variability in stiffness and nonlinearity of soil on response of nuclear power plant (NPP) structure subjected to seismic loads considering the soil-structure interaction (SSI). Both deterministic and probabilistic methods have been employed to evaluate the dynamic responses of the structure. For the deterministic method, $SRP_{min}$ method given in USNRC SRP 3.7.2(2013) (envelope of responses using three shear modulus profiles of lower bound($G_{LB}$), best estimate($G_{BE}$) and upper bound($G_{UB}$)) and $SRP_{max}$ method (envelope of responses by more than three ground profiles within range of $G_{LB}{\leq}G{\leq}G_{UB}$) have been considered. The probabilistic method uses the Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS) that can capture probabilistic feature of soil stiffness defined by the median and the standard deviation. These analysis results indicated that 1) number of samples shall be larger than 60 to apply the probabilistic approach in SSI analysis and 2) in-structure response spectra using equivalent linear soil profiles considering the nonlinear behavior of soil medium can be larger than those based on low-strain soil profiles.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.1363-1374
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• 2010

This study examined the physical and chemical properties of soil in Jang-San wetland in Busan Metropolitan City. The wetland covers wide and flat area comparing to its outside. The samples of the wetland soil were collected and analyzed in order to identify the profiles and chemical properties. According to the analyses of soil moisture and particle size distribution, the wetland soil mostly belongs to sandy loam with the soil moistures of 14.9-153.2%. The soil profiles are configured with O, A, B, and C horizons from the land surface. The organic matter content (2.38-16.7%) at most sampling locations decreases downwardly with the highest at 0-20 cm depth. The organic matter content has a good positive relationship with soil moisture content. According to X-ray diffraction analysis, the wetland soils contain quartz and feldspar (the main components of rhyolite porphyry) as well as montmorillonite, gibbsite, and kaolinite (the weathered products of feldspar). The wetland soil displays the highest iron concentration (average 22,052 mg/kg), indicating oxidation of iron. High concentrations of potassium (average 17,822 mg/kg) and sodium (average 5,394 mg/kg) originate from the weathering of feldspar. Among anions, sulfate concentration is highest with average 9.21 mg/kg that may originate from sulfate minerals and atmosphere.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.284-297
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• 2012

We developed an educational program using soil seed bank for promoting ecological literacy of children. The initial program was based on the modification of scientific methods used by ecologists. A pilot application was conducted to 4th~6th grade students. In that result, the program was most effective to 4th grade students in terms of ecological knowledge and attitude. Observation of plants in outdoor was the most interesting activity and soil seed bank experiment was the most useful activity to the students. The educational period from late March to early November was too long to keep interest for participants. In the final program, we suggested 3 months and 2 weeks education period (from the 4th week of March to the first week of July) and the 4th grade students as a target. The program consisted of 7 activities, which are "Beginning the soil seed banks observation", "Comparing plant community in each soil seed bank", "My friends, sprout", "How do you come here?", "Finding the hided plants in my school garden", "Why did the soil seed banks change?", and "Inquiring about relationship between plants and their environments". These activities include the process of student's participation of sampling and setting soil seed banks around their school, and observing and identifying the seedlings. Through these activities, students can understand the concept of soil seed banks, develop their ecological knowledge, eco-centric attitude, and ecological sensibility and inquire about the relationship between vegetation from soil seed banks and their environments.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.31-40
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• 2022

Background: Plant vegetation appears in heterogeneous and patchy forms in arid and semi-arid regions. In these regions, underneath the plant patches and the empty spaces between them are covered by biological soil crusts (moss, lichen, cyanobacteria, and fungi). Biological soil crusts lead to the formation and development of fertile islands in between vegetation patches via nitrogen and carbon fixation and the permeation of runoff water and nutrients in the soil. Results: The present study has investigated the association of biological soil crusts, the development of fertile islands, and the formation of plant patches in part of the Takht-e Soltan protected area, located in Khorasan Razavi Province, Iran. Three sites were randomly selected as the working units and differentiated based on their geomorphological characteristics to the alluvial fan, hillslope, and fluvial terrace landforms. Two-step systematic random sampling was conducted along a 100-meter transect using a 5 m² plot at a 0-5 cm depth in three repetitions. Fifteen samplings were carried out at each site with a total of 45 samples taken. The results showed that the difference in altitude has a significant relationship with species diversity and decreases with decreasing altitude. Results have revealed that the moisture content of the site, with biocrust has had a considerable increase compared to the other sites, helping to form vegetation patterns and fertile islands. Conclusions: The findings indicated that biological crusts had impacted the allocation of soil parameters. They affect the formation of plant patches by increasing the soil's organic carbon, nitrogen, moisture and nutrient content provide a suitable space for plant growth by increasing the soil fertility in the inter-patch space.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.34-40
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• 2015

Studies using stable water vapor isotopes have been recently conducted over the past two decades because of difficulties in analysis and sample collection in the past. Stable water vapor isotope data provide information of the moisture transport from ocean to continent, which are also used to validate an isotope enabled general circulation model for paleoclimate reconstructions. The isotopic compositions of groundwater and water vapor also provide a clue to how moisture moves from soil to atmosphere by evapotranspiration. International Atomic Energy Agency designates the stations over the world to observe the water vapor isotopes. To analyze the water vapor isotopes, a cryogenic sampling method has been used over the past two decades. Recently, two types of laser-based spectroscopy have been developed and remotely sensed data from satellites have the global coverage. In this review, measurements of isotopic compositions of water vapor will be introduced and some studies using the water vapor isotopes will also be introduced. Finally, we will suggest the future study in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.401-408
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• 2017

Organic amendments such as animal waste compost, lime-bordeaux mixture, and lime sulphur mixture contain heavy metal(loid)s which are toxic to human being, animal, and plant. The objective of this study was to compare heavy metal(loid)s contamination of soil between conventional and organic farm. Soil samples were collected from 10 conventional and 38 organic fruit farms. At each sampling point, top (0~15 cm) and sub soil (15~30 cm) were taken using hand auger. Total concentration for arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), nikel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn) in the collected soil were measured. The pollution index (PI) for heavy metal in organic farms indicated it was unpolluted area. However, mean value of PI for organic farms (0.143) was higher than that for conventional farms (0.122). High Geoaccumulation index (Igeo) for Cu, Pb, and Zn implied that grape farms were more polluted than others fruit farms because a lot of lime-bordeaux mixture and lime sulphur were applied in organic grape farms. Especially, top soils showed higher level of contamination than sub soil. Based on the above results, organic amendments might cause accumulation of heavy metals in soil. Therefore, particular attention should be paid for concentration of Cu, Pb, and Zn, when organic amendments are used in the organic fruit farms.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1999.10a
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• pp.95-102
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• 1999

It is important to estimate the magnitude of settlement and the time of primary consolidation in geotechnical engineering projects. For these purposes, site explorations and laboratory tests are usually performed. However, the mechanical properties determined from laboratory tests on the samples obtained by different sampling techniques show different trends. In this study, three types of consolidation test were carried out on the soil samples obtained by three different sampling techniques (76mm tube, 76mm piston, and block samples), to verify the effect of sample disturbance on consolidation properties. It was found that sampling methods have influence on the $\varepsilon$ - log $\sigma$'$_{v}$ relationship. While insignificant difference of compression indices from the samples obtained by different sampling techniques was observed in compression region, these values showed a different trend in precompression region. The values of $c_{v}$ and k of block samples had a tendency to be larger than those of piston and tube samples. At consolidation pressure larger than $\sigma$'$_{p}$, however, these properties became similar regardless of sampling methods. The block and piston samples gave slightly higher values of $C_{a/}$ $C_{c}$ than tube samples. In the results of I $L_{EOP}$ and CRS test, it was observed that the values of $\sigma$'$_{p measured}$/$\sigma$'$_{p best estimated}$ of Yang-San clay decreases when strain becomes larger than 1.0% and that precompression strain of block samples is in the range of 1.5~2.0% while those of piston and tube samples are 1.75~3.75%. It was also shown that the values of $\sigma$'$_{p}$ of block samples exceed those of piston and tube samples by about 6~10%.6~10%.%.%.%.%.