• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.299-306
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• 2000

Korea IS one of countries to be predicted short of water in the 21st century. The government has been investigating various alternatives to resolve the problems including construction of reservoirs. Freshwater retention techniques using boom and skirt system is one of them. It is very difficult to intake water in the estuaries of south and west coast of Korea because a big tide penetrates into an upstream river. Thus, means or retaining and keeping separate freshwater from seawater could potentially be helpful in solving the water supply problems. In this study, the proposed means to achieve freshwater retention is by use of floating boom and skirt systems. The hydraulic viability of these systems in taking advantage of natural stratification tendencies between the fresh and seawaters has been investigated through hydraulic experiments. It is found that freshwater retention capacity depends on skirt length and the opening beneath the skirt. The choice of skirt length IS very important to optimize freshwater storage because longer skirt lengths cause faster mixing and shorter lengths retain less volume. Results show that the freshwater retention volume generally increases as the length of the skirt increases. However, they show that water storage might be insufficient if skirts were either too long or too short.