Consideration in Applying Korean-Comprehensive Water Quality Index(K-CWQI) to Assessement of Water Quality in the Major Tributaries of Gumho-River Basin

Abstract

In this study, K-CWQI (Korean-Comprehensive Water Quality Index) including five items such as pH, DO, BOD, SS and T-Coli developed by NIER (National Institute of Environmental Research) in 2006 is calculated by using the result of monitoring in the major tributaries of Gumho-River Basin from 2015 to 2016 and reviewed about applicability when evaluating water quality in the basin. The scope of calculated K-CWQI is from 70 to 90 points in five tributaries and water quality of major tributaries of Gumho-River Basin is evaluated above "slightly good grade". The highest value of K-CWQI is 88 points of Palgeacheon on the other hand, the lowest value of K-CWQI is 77 points of Namcheon. Also, the grade evaluated by K-CWQI and BOD is compared in order to apply K-CWQI to assessment of water quality. The results of this comparison are summarized as follows. The degree of agreement between the grade evaluated by K-CWQI and BOD is reached to 93% when including 1st grade difference as well as exact match and the monthly variation of K-CWQI is relatively lower than BOD. Therefore, K-CWQI not only can complement current water quality standard consisting of a single item, but also assess water environment of tributary comprehensively.

Temporal and Spatial Water Quality Assessment of the Geumho River, Korea, Using Multivariate Statistics and Water Quality Indices

“…As for organic pollutants, large amounts of non-biodegradable organic matter have been discharged due to recent rapid urban growth, industrialization, and intense human activities [7,39] , implying that more stringent regulations for organic pollutants are required. In addition, for urban rivers that pass through metropolitan cities with large populations and high levels of industrialization, the appropriate operation of STFs and WTFs is required given the continuous discharges from certain pollution sources [19,29] .…”

“…In particular, the industrial complexes within the basin generate large amounts of wastewater treated in large sewage treatment facilities (STFs) and wastewater treatment facilities (WTFs) and subsequently discharged into the river. These e uents introduce a range of pollutants (e.g., non-biodegradable organic matter, nutrients, and heavy metals) into the river as it passes through the urban areas [19,28,29] . Therefore, further water quality management interventions are urgently required to target these pollutants.…”

“…The KWQI ranges from 0 to 100, with a higher value representing cleaner water. In this assessment, KWQI values were divided into the following ve grades: excellent (80-100), good (60-79), fair (40-59), poor (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39), and very poor (0-19).…”

Temporal and Spatial Water Quality Assessment for Rivers in Metropolitan Areas Using Multivariate Statistics and Water Quality Indices: A Case Study of the Geumho River, Korea

“…In particular, the industrial complexes within the basin generate large amounts of wastewater treated in large sewage treatment facilities (STFs) and wastewater treatment facilities (WTFs) and subsequently discharged into the river. These e uents introduce a range of pollutants (e.g., non-biodegradable organic matter, nutrients, and heavy metals) into the river as it passes through the urban areas (Park et al 2016;Shin et al 2018;Xu et al 2019). Therefore, further water quality management interventions are urgently required to target these pollutants.…”

“…As for organic pollutants, large amounts of non-biodegradable organic matter have been discharged due to recent rapid urban growth, industrialization, and intense human activities (Jung et al 2015;Choi et al 2017), implying that more stringent regulations for organic pollutants are required. In addition, for urban rivers that pass through metropolitan cities with large populations and high levels of industrialization, the appropriate operation of STFs and WTFs is required given the continuous discharges from certain pollution sources (Choi et al 2016;Shin et al 2018;.…”