• Ocean and Polar Research
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• 제30권4호
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• pp.475-484
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• 2008

The word 'Saemangeum' indicates an estuarine tidal flat in the southwestern part of the Korean peninsula. The Saemangeum Reclamation Project was launched as a national project in 1991 to reclaim a large coastal area of $401\;km^2$ by constructing a 33-km long dyke. The final dyke enclosure in April 2006 has transformed the tidal flat into lake and land. An integrated oceanographic study has been conducted since 2002 as a part of the Government Action Plan to monitor and assess changes in the marine environment. Prior to the dyke enclosure, the coastal environment in the Saemangeum was a complex system governed by tidal motion, estuarine processes, and coastal circulation of the Yellow Sea. The dyke construction has radically changed not only the estuarine tidal system inside the dyke, but also the coastal marine environment outside the dyke. Post to the dyke enclosure, subsequent changes such as red tide, hypoxia, and coastal erosion/deposition occur successively. Red tides appear almost the year round in the inner area. Even under the condition that the sluice gates are fully open, the water quality does not improve as much as the developers would expect, mainly due to the critical reduction of the hydrodynamic stirring power. We will introduce details of our monitoring program and significant changes in the Saemangeum marine environment, based on observations and model results.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• 제51권6호
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• pp.53-62
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• 2009

The EFDC (Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code), a numerical model for simulating three-dimensional (3D) flow, transport, and biogeochemical processes in surface water systems including rivers, reservoirs, and estuaries, was applied to assess the effect of sea water and fresh water exchange rates ($Q_e$) on the mixing characteristics of a conservative pollutant (tracer) induced from upstreams and salinity in Saemangeum Lake, Korea. The lake has been closed by a 33 km estuary embankment since last April of 2006, and now seawater enters the lake partially through two sluice gates (Sinsi and Garyuk), which is driving the changes of hydrodynamic and water quality properties of the lake. The EFDC was constructed and calibrated with surveyed bathymetry data and field data including water level, temperature, and salinity in 2008. The model showed good agreement with the field data and adequately replicated the spatial and temporal variations of the variables. The validated model was applied to simulated the tracer and salinity with two different gate operation scenarios: RUN-1 and RUN-2. RUN-1 is the case of real operation condition ($Q_e=25,000,000\;m^3$) of 2008, while RUN-2 assumed full open of Sinsi gate to increase $Q_e$ by $120,000,000\;m^3$. Statistical analysis of the simulation results indicate that mixing characteristics of pollutants from upstream can be significantly affected by the amount of $Q_e$.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• 제22권9호
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• pp.1115-1129
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• 2013

The study area is located on the western coast, and the inner development construction has been ongoing since 2011. The purposes of current study are to effectively simulate and quantitatively predict a temporal and spatial distributions of water temperature and salinity due to the stages of inner development construction in saemangeum reclaimed area. The transient-state numerical modeling using EFDC model is done, and the numerical simulation results are validated reasonably by repetitive numerical model calibration procedures with respect to field measurements of water temperature and salinity. The spatial distributions of water temperature and salinity show similar trends before and after construction of the dikes. In spring season, the salinity has maximum value of 21 psu, while, in summer season, the salinity shows 7 psu in a whole modeling domain. Thus, it is clearly observed that salt water is replaced by freshwater. However, the salinity and temperature reach their initial conditions at the end of the year. The salinity after construction of the dikes is lower than that before construction of them at Mankyeong area. On the other hands, after construction of the dikes, the salinity after dredging operations is higher than that before dredging. Because drastical increasing of water volume in Saemangeum Lake leads to increasing of stagnation time at bottom layer, and salt water is easily intruded to the two estuaries. Therefore, it may be concluded that hydrodynamic characteristics on Saemangeum are dominated by either Mankyeong and Dongjin discharge or sluice gates in/out-flow amounts, and thus they must be properly considered when rigorous and reasonable predictions of water temperature and salinity according to the stages of inner development construction.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• 제31권4호
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• pp.327-338
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• 2009

Zooplankton community structure was investigated in the Saemangeum region in March, May, July and October of 2007 and 2008 in order to understand the potential effect of post construction of Saemangeum dyke on their temporal and spatial distribution. Mean abundance of zooplankton in the inner and outer area of the dyke, except for dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans, ranged from 173 to 15,830 ind.m$^{-3}$, showing higher variability in the inner area compared to the outer area. Zooplankton abundance was higher in the outer area than the inner area in 2007, and vice versa in 2008. In the inner area of the dyke, zooplankton abundance was the highest in May 2007 and March 2008. In the outer area of the dyke, abundance was the highest in October 2007 and July 2008. Brackish species such as Tortanus derjugini and Pseudodiaptomus inopinus were dominant prior to construction of the dyke, and appeared less frequently in the inner area. Marine zooplankton taxa such as juvenile hydromedusa, and calanoid copepods Acartiahongi and Paracalanus parvus s.l. dominated both areas of the dyke. In CCA analysis, zooplankton community structure in the inner and outer area was similar in March and May, but different in July and October. Temperature, salinity and COD were important environmental factors affecting zooplankton community structure. These results suggest that zooplankton community structure in the inner and outer area of Saemangeum dyke are significantly affected by whether the sluice gates are closed or open.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• 제15권6호
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• pp.41-48
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• 2014

In this study, the behavior of fill dam with continuous water level change considering velocity changes via centrifugal model test was investigated. In addition, the collapse of fill dam due to the overflow was also experimentally simulated. The experimental results demonstrate that the pore water pressures and displacements vary in proportion to the water-level-change velocity, and the displacement increment is independent to the water-level-change velocity. Also, it is confirmed that the continuous water level change induces to the progress of fill-dam deformation due to displacement accumulation and the fill-dam stability dramatically degrades owing to the overflow. Hence, the real-time monitoring of pore water pressures and displacements of fill dam, and the control of water level in heavy rain through the countermeasure such as opening sluice gates are needed to ensure the stability of fill dam.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• 제44권1호
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• pp.13-27
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• 2022

The Yeongsan River estuary was altered by a sea dike built in 1981 and the sluice gates in the dike were extended recently in 2014. The construction has caused changes in water properties and hydrodynamics and also produced disturbances including hypoxia and algal blooms. We analyzed the water quality and chlorophyll-a data (2009-2018) collected seasonally at 3 stations (Sts. 1-3) along the channel of the estuary by the Marine Environmental Monitoring System. Variations in water quality and chlorophyll-a (an index of phytoplankton biomass) were examined and their stressors were also identified by statistics including correlation and multivariate principal component analyses (PCA). The water quality was mainly affected by freshwater discharge from the dike. Salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll-a were especially affected by the discharge and the effect enhanced during summer and at the upper region near the sea dike decreasing downstream. Three factors were extracted for each station in the PCA accounting for 66.07-72.42% of the variations. The first was an external factor associated with freshwater discharge and the second and third were seasonal or biological factors. The results indicate that the water quality is more affected by short-termed and episodic events such as freshwater discharge than seasonal events and the influence of freshwater discharge on water quality is more extensive than that previously reported. This suggests that the boundary of the estuary should be extended to take into account the findings of this study and a management strategy linked to the freshwater zone is required to manage the integrity and water quality of the Yeongsan River estuary.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• 제3권4호
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• pp.37-55
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• 2000

Two-dimensional numerical experiments and field surveys have been conducted to clarify some environmental variations in the flow and sedimentation in the adjacent seas after the construction of a tidal embankment. Velocities of flow and water levels in the bay decreased after the construction of the barrage. When the freshwater was instantly released into the bay, the conditions of flow were unaltered, with the exception of a minor variation in velocities and tidal levels around the sluices at the ebb flow. The computational results showed that freshwater released at the low water reached the outside of the bay and then returned to the inside with the tidal currents at the high water. The front sea regions of the embankment had a variety of sedimentary phases such as a clayish silt, a silty clay and a sandy clayish silt. However, a clayish silt was prevalent in the middle of the bay. On the other hand, the skewness, which reflects the behaviour of sediments, was $\{pm}0.1$ at the front regions of the embankment while it was more than ±0.3 in the middle of the bay. Analytical results of drilling samples acquired from the front of the sluice gates showed that the lower part of the sediments consists of very fine silty or clayish grains. The upper surface layer consisted of shellfish, such as oyster or barnacle with a thickness of 40～50 cm. Therefore, it seemed that the lower part of the sediments would have been one of intertidal zones prior to the embankment construction while the upper shellfish layer would have been debris of shellfish farms formed in the adjacent seas after the construction of the embankment. This shows the difference of sedimentary phases reflected the influence of a tidal embankment construction.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• 제55권1호
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• pp.49-59
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• 2022

Total of 325 estuaries in Korea were surveyed to analyze the effect of presence of sluice gate on the estuary environment and fish community from 2016 to 2018. Fish community in closed and open estuaries showed differences generally, and the relative abundance (RA) of primary freshwater species in the closed and migratory species in the open estuaries were high. The result of classifying species by habitat characteristics in closed and open estuaries showed similar tendencies at the estuaries of south sea and west sea. The relative abundances of primary freshwater species in the closed estuaries at the estuaries of south sea and west sea were the highest, but estuarine and migratory species were high in both closed and open estuaries at the estuaries of east sea. Primary freshwater species showed higher abundances in the closed estuaries with reduced salinity due to blocking of seawater since they are not resistant to salt. However, primary freshwater species in open estuaries at east sea was higher than that of the closed estuaries, which is considered to be the result of reflecting the characteristics (tide, sand bar, etc.) of the east sea. Korea Estuary Fish Assessment Index (KEFAI) was showed to be higher at open estuaries than closed in all sea areas (T-test, P<0.001), the highest KEFAI was observed in closed estuaries at south sea, and open estuaries in east sea. Fish community of closed and open estuaries in each sea areas showed statistically significant differences (PERMANOVA, East, Pseudo-F=3.0198, P=0.002; South, Pseudo-F=22.00, P=0.001; West, Pseudo-F=14.067, P=0.001). Fish assemblage similarity by sea areas showed a significant differences on fish community in closed and open estuaries at east sea, south sea, and west sea (SIMPER, Group dissimilarity, 85.85%, 88.36%, and 88.05%). This study provided information on the characteristics and distribution of fish community according to the types of estuaries. The results of this study can be used as a reference for establishing appropriate management plans according to the sea areas and type in the management and restoration of estuaries for future.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• 제21권5호
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• pp.541-552
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• 2000

The variations of physical properties due to inflow of seawater by sluice gates operation were observed in Shihwa Lake. The distributions of salinity and temperature were investigated at 11 stations during February, 1997 to July, 1998. The salinity of water mass in Shihwa Lake before gate operation was ranged below 15psu and strong stratification due to inflow of seawater was observed at the depth of 11 m. In July 1997, temperature difference of 10^{\circ}C$ was occurred between the surface and bottom water due to strong solar radiation. During October 1997 to February 1998, inversion of temperature distribution, which the temperature of bottom water was higher than that of surface water, was observed. In July 1997, temperature, salinity, current speed and current direction were investigated by RCM-7 at St.3 for 56 days. When sea water was intruded in Shihwa Lake, the symmetric distribution of temperature and salinity was observed and it seems to be resulted from inflow of seawater with low temperature and high salinity. After January 1998, salinity of Shihwa Lake was increased over 30psu due to continuous gate operation and the stratification was weakened.

• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.25-33
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• 2020

The Asan Bay, which has semi-diurnal tide with macro-tidal range, is affected by both freshwater discharge from the sluice gates in the sea dikes and tidal seawater inputs from the Yellow sea. Understanding water quality change in response to tides is important since tides can impact the short-term variations in physical and chemical water properties as well as the response of biological properties. The diel variations in water quality were seasonally investigated at 2 hour intervals from a fixed station in the Asan Bay. In the results, water temperature and salinity consistently fluctuated in phase or out of phase with tidal height. Especially salinity was positively correlated with tidal height. The concentrations of total suspended solids were higher in the bottom water than in the surface and fluctuated greatly over the tidal cycle recording higher values at low tide than at high tide. Nitrite+nitrate levels also fluctuated out of phase with tidal height and correlated negatively with tidal height. Other nutrients also showed a similar pattern. The pattern was distinct in July when freshwater was discharged before the field sampling. The concentrations of organic materials, total nitrogen and total phosphorus greatly fluctuated over the tidal cycle and were generally out of phase with tidal height. Most materials except particulate organic forms were correlated with salinity indicating that freshwater inputs were sources for the materials similarly to the dissolved inorganic nutrients. The results suggest that water quality (except dissolved oxygen and pH) and nutrients including organic materials was largely affected by tides in the Asan Bay.