• Journal of Marine Life Science
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.72-80
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• 2020

A sea dike in the Yeongsan River estuary was constructed in 1981 to supply water and reclaim tidal flats for agriculture, separating the estuary into the freshwater and seawater zones. However, the sluice gates are frequently opened and freshwater is discharged in summer when more rainfall is recorded than other seasons, then converting the estuary to brackish water system. In this study, the direct effect of freshwater discharge was investigated by monitoring daily variation in water properties and phytoplankton size structure before and after the freshwater discharge events from 2013 to 2015. Freshwater discharge resulted in a sharp decrease in salinity and dissolved oxygen (DO) at surface water whereas it increased the turbidity of water column. However, salinity did not decrease sharply in 2014 when freshwater was discharged one day before the monitoring and salinity remained low prior to the monitoring. Levels of nutrients especially dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) increased after the discharge and this contributed to potential limitation of nutrients such as P or Si rather than N in the estuary. Freshwater discharge also caused the changes in phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll a) and size structure although their responses were different between years. The changes may affect growth of grazers and thus structure of marine food web by alternating food availability in the Yeongsan River estuary.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.89-95
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• 2019

Mooring observations of water temperature and salinity were conducted to investigate the effects of freshwater discharge patterns on the mouth of Nakdong River from April 2017 to March 2018. More than $500-1000m^3\;s^{-1}\;d^{-1}$ of freshwater was frequently discharged into the estuary throughout the rainy season, but less than $200m^3\;s^{-1}\;d^{-1}$ was discharged through the normal season. Sluice gates of the estuarine barrage operated depending on the tide level during spring tide, but they were constantly open during neap tide. Water temperature and salinity fluctuated regularly with intermittent discharges of freshwater, whereas they were stable while freshwater discharge was continuous. Mean salinity was 29 during the study period. Salinity exceeded the mean value in the normal season and rapidly recovered after a temporary reduction. In contrast, water with salinity below the mean value prevailed in the estuary for three months over the rainy season. These results indicate that water temperature and salinity were affected by the amount of freshwater discharge, as well as the frequency of discharge on a large scale and the time over which the freshwater discharge continued.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.27-43
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• 2021

Since climate factors, such as precipitation, temperature, etc., show repeated patterns every year, it can be said that future changes can be predicted by analyzing past climate data. As with groundwater, seasonal variations predominate. Therefore, when a drought occurs, the groundwater level is also lowered. Thus, a change in the groundwater level can represent a drought. Like precipitation, groundwater level changes also have a high correlation with drought, so many researchers use Standard Groundwater Level Index (SGI) to which the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) method is applied to evaluate the severity of droughts and predict drought trends. However, due to the strong interferences caused by the recent increase in groundwater use, it is difficult to represent the droughts of regions or entire watersheds by only using groundwater level change data using the SPI or SGI methods, which analyze data from one representative observation station. Therefore, if the long-term groundwater level changes of all the provinces of a watershed are analyzed, the overall trend can be shown even if there is use interference. Thus, future groundwater level changes and droughts can be more accurately predicted. Therefore, in this study, it was confirmed that the groundwater level changes in the last 5 years compared with the monthly average groundwater level changes of the monitoring wells installed before 2015 appeared similar to the drought occurrence pattern. As a result of analyzing the correlation with the water storage yields of 3,423 agricultural reservoirs that do not immediately open their sluice gates in the cases of droughts or floods, it was confirmed that the correlation was higher than 56% in the natural state. Therefore, it was concluded that it is possible to re-evaluate agricultural droughts through long-term groundwater level change analyses.

• Journal of Korean Society of Disaster and Security
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.157-164
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• 2023

The estuary dam is a structure installed and operated in a closed state except when flood event occurs to prevent inland saltwater intrusion and secure freshwater supply. However, the closed state of dam leads to issues such as eutrophication, so it is necessary to examine the extent of saltwater intrusion resulting from the opening of sluice gates. Groundwater, due to its subsurface conditions and slow flow characteristics, is widely analyzed using numerical models. OpenGeoSys, an open-source software capable of simulating Thermal- Hydraulic- Mechanical- Chemical phenomena, was adopted for this study. Simulations were conducted assuming natural flow conditions without dam and operating considering busy farming season, mostly from March to September. Verification of the model through analytical solutions showed error of 3.7%, confirming that OpenGeoSys is capable of simulating saltwater intrusion for these cases. From results simulated for 10 years, considering for the busy farming season, resulted in about 46% reduction in saltwater intrusion length compared to natural flow conditions, approximately 74.36 m. It may be helpful to make choices to use groundwater as a water resource.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.206-215
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• 2008

Temporal and spatial distributions of salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen (DO), and turbidity were investigated at seven sites in the upper regions of brackish Lake Sihwa with a limited water exchange, from March to October 2005. During the study period, salinity and temperature varied $0.1{\sim}29.9\;psu$ and $4.7{\sim}28.1^{\circ}C$, respectively, depending on seasons and sites sampled. A distinct halocline profile showing the maximum density gradient (difference over $20\;psu\;m^{-1}$ between surface and bottom layers) was observed during the rainy season, due to the decrease of salinity in surface layers by freshwater inflow. This result implies that rainfall event is the important factor forming the halocline. On the other hand, the depth and location of haloeline varied with the amount of seawater through the sluice gates and the operation systems (inflow or outflow). High DO (over 300% saturation) was observed at surface layer above the halocline in April when red tide occurred, whereas low DO (below 20% saturation) was at the bottom layer below the halocline in the rainy season. Turbidity ranged $1.5{\sim}80.3\;NTU$ showing the maximum turbidity at the layers above or upper the halocline. As a result, the distributions of DO and turbidity in the upper regions of brackish Lake Sihwa were largely affected by the variation of salinity. Also, when the halocline was formed, the water quality between upper and lower water layers may be expected completely different. This study suggests that the physicochemical characteristics of water in the brackish regions are closely associated with the causes of eutrophication such as red tide and DO deficit.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.216-227
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• 2008

To understand eutrophication in the upper regions of brackish Lake Sihwa with a limited water exchange, temporal and spatial distributions of pollutants in water and sediment were investigated from March to October in 2005 and 2006. Also, pollution levels of water and sediment were estimated by trophic state index (TSI) and sediment quality guideline (SQG). Total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), organic matter (COD), and chlorophyll $\alpha$ (Chl-$\alpha$) concentrations in the surface waters were largely varied temporally and spatially, and the variations were highest in the middle areas where strong halocline was formed. Chl-$\alpha$ concentrations in the middle area were very high in April (>$900\;{\mu}g\;L^{-1}$) when algal blooms (red tides) occurred. The relationships between TN and Chl-$\alpha$ (r=0.31), and TP and Chl-$\alpha$ (r=0.65) indicated that the algal growth was primarily affected by phosphorus rather than nitrogen. The distribution of COD was similar to that of Chl-$\alpha$, indicating that the autochthonous organic matters may be a more important carbon source, especially in the middle areas. The brackish water regions were classified as eutrophic or hypertrophic based on their TSI values ($69{\sim}76$). In addition, the content of nutrients (especially TP) in surface sediments were classified as severe polluted state, except the upper areas. Major causes of the eutrophication observed were probably due to high nutrients loading from watersheds, the phosphorus release from anaerobic sediment, and long retention time by the limited water exchange through the sluice gates.