• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.242-252
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to develop a Multi-metric Water Quality Assessment (MWQA) model and apply it to dataset sampled from Paldang and Daechung reservoir in 2008. The various water dataset used to this study included 5 year data sets (2003${\sim}$2007) in Korean reservoirs which were obtained from the Ministry of Environment, Korea. In this study, suggested MWQA model has 4 metrics that were composed of 4 parameters such as chemical, physical, biological, and hydrological variables. And, each of the variables attributed total phosphorus (TP) concentration in water, secchi depth (SD) measure in water, chlorophyll-${\alpha}$(Chl-${\alpha}$) concentration in water and the ratio of inflow of water into lakes and efflux of water from lakes, input/output (I/O). First, we established the criteria for trophic boundaries. The boundary between oligotrophic and mesotrophic categories was defined by the lower third of the cumulative distribution of the values. The mesotrophic-eutrophic boundary was defined by the upper third of the distribution. Second, each metric was given by a point-oligo=1, meso=3, eu=5. And then, obtained total score from each metric was divided 5 grade-Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, and Very poor. As the results of applying the proposed MWQA model, the Paldang reservoir obtained "Fair" or "Poor" grade and Daechung reservoir obtained "Excellent" or "Good" grade. The suggested MWQA model through these procedures will enable to manage efficiently the reservoir. And, more studies such as metric numbers and attributes should be done for the accurate application of the new model.