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Multipurpose Dam Techs Win Fame
I By Choi Yearn-hong
[Picture]
Seen is the Soyang River Dam in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, one of major
multi-purpose dams built for Korea's modernization. Korea's industrialization
drive gained momentum with the massive construction of multi-purpose
dams. Korea has been playing the role of consultant to developing nations
in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa on water resources and
environmental management.
In the 1990s, the United Nations classified Korea as a water scarce nation. Rainfall is limited to three summer months, so that multipurpose dam construction was the basis for water storage during the dry season and flood control during the wet season, as well as hydroelectric power generation for energy supply. The first multi-purpose dam was constructed at Jeongup City, North Jeolla Province in 1926 under Japanese colonial rule.
The modernization of South Korea (Korea from here on) in the 1960s required foremost a stable water supply, and thus dam construction boomed in the 1960s and 1970s. Human beings need water for living. Farms need a stable water supply. All living things need water. Factories and industrial parks need a stable water supply for their operations. Dams also protect human lives and properties from flooding in the low lands.
In the early 1960s, President Park Chung-hee asked a simple question to then Economic Planning Board bureaucrats during a briefing on the proposed five-year economic development program. Where are you going to get the water and energy to carry out this series of economic developmental plans? He was the first president who detected the necessity of reliable water and energy supplies to support the economic development programs.
Korea has an Indiana-size small landmass with 45 million people occupying it. Korea is not blessed with an even distribution of rain from January to December.
So thousands of small reservoirs and 18 multi-purpose dams were built to supply the necessary amount of water. However, environmentalists argue that the government policymakers are currently, unnecessarily, planning to construct more dams.
Despite this lack of support from environmentalists over dam construction, no one seriously doubts the benefits of the multi-purpose dams the nation has. Korea's modernization efforts were made possible with the construction of multi-purpose dams. The major dams are Paldang Dam, Soyang River Dam, Chungju Dam on the Han River; Andong Dam, Imha Dam, Hapchon Dam, Nam river Dam and Miryang Dam on the Nakdong River; Daechong Dam and Yongdam Dam on the Kum River; and Seomjin River Dam on the Youngsan River.
Korea Water Resources Corporation (KOWACO or K-water) has been the main architect of Korea's construction and management of multi-purpose dams and has earned a good reputation worldwide for designs of dams, need assessment, feasibility studies and structuring engineering.
Water-scarce Nation
It has been playing the role of consultant to many developing nations in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and in Africa on water resources and environmental affairs. KOWACO has been working as Korea's agency to provide foreign aid to those needy countries as a technical assistant. It has contributed to the construction of multi-purpose dams and the exploration of ground water to several developing countries. Nevertheless, some debates regarding the need of future dam construction continue. Why is Korea a water-scarce nation? South Korea is not a desert land. It has an annual precipitation of 1,274mm, 1.3 times higher than the world average of 973mm. Per capita rainfall stands only at 2,755 tons, far lower than the world average of 20,296 tons due to its population density.
The U.N. Population Action Institute (PAI) classified South Korea in a group of countries lacking in water supply, having a per capita supply of less than 2,000 cubic meters per year. Moreover, the situation is getting worse. Korea's per capita water supply, which stood at 1,470 cubic meters in 1993, is forecast to drop to 1,199 cubic meters in 2025. Other nations on the PAI list include Cyprus, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt and Poland.
During the poverty stricken post-Korean War era, Korea survived with a very limited water supply. Urban residents waited in long lines with buckets at pubic water faucets. Compared to those days in the 1950s, Koreans nowadays enjoy great economic affluence and an abundant water supply.
Water consumption increases as household income increases. This is an axiomatic truth. However, water consumption since the mid- 1990s has been steady and stable in most cities. This is good news even though on-going urbanization of rural areas will demand more water supplies in the future. Regional disparity of precipitation has been noticeable in Korea. The Han River and the Kum River are relatively plentiful, whereas the Nakdong River and the Yeongsan River are not. Drinking water supplies are a serious problem to Busan residents located at the southernmost port at the end of the Nakdong River.
Industrial and urban water use in the Daegu area above Busan and less than par wastewater treatment in the upper and middle parts of the River basin make the situation worse. The Jeolla region has been used as farmland, so that scarcity of water made the Japanese colonial government build the first multi-purpose dam on the Seomjin River in 1926. The Seomjin River dam's height was 64 meters and 344.2 meters long, and the reservoir is 40,000 cubic meters.
Minimizing floods in the summer months has been another major purpose and function of the multi-purpose dams built in Korea. The summer months in Korea meant flooding. The damage of the summer floods created serious loss not only to human lives but of properties and crops.
For the past 10 years, more than 90 percent of deaths from natural disasters were caused by water-related catastrophes, according to KOWACO. Moreover, victims of water-related incidents have more than doubled since 1996. Damages from water and climate disasters have cost 1.3 trillion won during the last decade, surpassing damages by traffic accidents or fires. El Nino-caused floods hit the northern part of the nation, and increased the number of human victims, property loss and damage. The contribution of the multi-purpose dams to counter against these problems has been significant. Ultimately, human settlement in flood-prone areas should be discouraged. New land use planning and regulations are necessary. It is an irony for a small nation to confront such flooding in the summer and water scarcity, drought, in spring, fall and winter seasons.
Future Task
Dams' water supplies have been threatened by pollution from farmland and small businesses. Pollution from industrial parks and big businesses has been closely regulated by the Ministry of Environment. Yet, cow, hog and chicken waste have not been regulated at all. The wastewater treatment systems were installed at 60 percent of the Korean communities. The government has a plan to increase it to 92 percent by 2011. Septic tanks are not effectively installed in farm houses. The best available technology or the best practicable technology has not been seriously discussed. River water quality deteriorated in the 1990s, despite serious central governmental investment in installing wastewater treatment
Korean local governments are basically responsible for managing drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. However, they do not have enough money to build and manage modern wastewater plants. The authoritarian central government forced local governments to build the wastewater plants, but financing the plants after a new local autonomous government law in 1995 made the situation worse. Paying the principal and interest for the construction loans and financing the operation costs are not easy for many local governments. The wealth of the nation is concentrated in Seoul and its vicinity and a few major cities. Many local governments simply cannot finance the wastewater plants with their own resources.
The Ministry of Environment has attempted to create a buffer zone between the river and the human settlements, and regulations based upon the river basin's total amount of pollution. The Ministry does not have money to purchase the buffer zone, and the residents violently protested the buffer zone concept on the grounds of their property rights. The Ministry finally imposed a water use fee to the affluent lower river basin residents to create the funds for the relatively poor upper river basin residents. It is a kind of cost-sharing method to transfer money from the affluent area to the less affluent area. The Han River and the Nakdong River basins have also adopted the same plan, and other river basins will soon follow.
Climate Change
Unpredictable weather from climate change forces Korea to prepare for longer dry seasons and greater flooding in summer months. However, there are no more sites for multi-purpose dam construction. Therefore, the renewal or remodeling of the existing dams is wise for the nation, and to maintain the water quality of dams and rivers, water pollution should be prevented or minimized with the modernization of the wastewater plants and farming methods.
North Korea's water resources management has affected South Korea's rivers in the border area, because several rivers originate from the North and flow into the South. North Korea's Kumkang Mountain Dam (or Imnam Dam, official name in the North) has seriously reduced the flow of the river into the North Han River by 12 percent and Imjin River originating from the North has flooded the lower basin in the South during summer months in the past. The Kumkang Dam can be a “weapon” as a flood attack on the South; so that the South built the “Peace Dam” to block a possible flood attack in 2003. It also regulated the normal river flow; it has already dried up the Hwacheon Dam. The two Koreas should create a joint water resource management system for the border area, but the political tension and the Cold War mood has not made any positive discussion possible so far.
Multi-purpose dams have provided many advantages to Korea, but maintenance of such dams require constant attention and care by KOWACO, citizens, farmers, businessmen, women and environmentalists. All dams should be renewed and remodeled for reserving more water and for preventing floods and to generate more hydro-electric power.
Future dam renewal and remodeling works require environmentally friendly procedures, including a fish path. The Grand Canyon Dam in the United States has changed the arid American West to become a livable and prosperous region as a result of a miraculous scientific and engineering public work project to overcome the Great Depression in the 1930s. It is a famous tourist spot. South Korean multipurpose dams are comparable to the Grand Canyon Dam in launching Korea's miraculous economic development with impressive civil engineering projects in the 1960s and the 1970s.
Multipurpose Dam Techs Win Fame
I By Choi Yearn-hong
[Picture]
Seen is the Soyang River Dam in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, one of major
multi-purpose dams built for Korea's modernization. Korea's industrialization
drive gained momentum with the massive construction of multi-purpose
dams. Korea has been playing the role of consultant to developing nations
in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa on water resources and
environmental management.
In the 1990s, the United Nations classified Korea as a water scarce nation. Rainfall is limited to three summer months, so that multipurpose dam construction was the basis for water storage during the dry season and flood control during the wet season, as well as hydroelectric power generation for energy supply. The first multi-purpose dam was constructed at Jeongup City, North Jeolla Province in 1926 under Japanese colonial rule.
The modernization of South Korea (Korea from here on) in the 1960s required foremost a stable water supply, and thus dam construction boomed in the 1960s and 1970s. Human beings need water for living. Farms need a stable water supply. All living things need water. Factories and industrial parks need a stable water supply for their operations. Dams also protect human lives and properties from flooding in the low lands.
In the early 1960s, President Park Chung-hee asked a simple question to then Economic Planning Board bureaucrats during a briefing on the proposed five-year economic development program. Where are you going to get the water and energy to carry out this series of economic developmental plans? He was the first president who detected the necessity of reliable water and energy supplies to support the economic development programs.
Korea has an Indiana-size small landmass with 45 million people occupying it. Korea is not blessed with an even distribution of rain from January to December.
So thousands of small reservoirs and 18 multi-purpose dams were built to supply the necessary amount of water. However, environmentalists argue that the government policymakers are currently, unnecessarily, planning to construct more dams.
Despite this lack of support from environmentalists over dam construction, no one seriously doubts the benefits of the multi-purpose dams the nation has. Korea's modernization efforts were made possible with the construction of multi-purpose dams. The major dams are Paldang Dam, Soyang River Dam, Chungju Dam on the Han River; Andong Dam, Imha Dam, Hapchon Dam, Nam river Dam and Miryang Dam on the Nakdong River; Daechong Dam and Yongdam Dam on the Kum River; and Seomjin River Dam on the Youngsan River.
Korea Water Resources Corporation (KOWACO or K-water) has been the main architect of Korea's construction and management of multi-purpose dams and has earned a good reputation worldwide for designs of dams, need assessment, feasibility studies and structuring engineering.
Water-scarce Nation
It has been playing the role of consultant to many developing nations in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and in Africa on water resources and environmental affairs. KOWACO has been working as Korea's agency to provide foreign aid to those needy countries as a technical assistant. It has contributed to the construction of multi-purpose dams and the exploration of ground water to several developing countries. Nevertheless, some debates regarding the need of future dam construction continue. Why is Korea a water-scarce nation? South Korea is not a desert land. It has an annual precipitation of 1,274mm, 1.3 times higher than the world average of 973mm. Per capita rainfall stands only at 2,755 tons, far lower than the world average of 20,296 tons due to its population density.
The U.N. Population Action Institute (PAI) classified South Korea in a group of countries lacking in water supply, having a per capita supply of less than 2,000 cubic meters per year. Moreover, the situation is getting worse. Korea's per capita water supply, which stood at 1,470 cubic meters in 1993, is forecast to drop to 1,199 cubic meters in 2025. Other nations on the PAI list include Cyprus, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt and Poland.
During the poverty stricken post-Korean War era, Korea survived with a very limited water supply. Urban residents waited in long lines with buckets at pubic water faucets. Compared to those days in the 1950s, Koreans nowadays enjoy great economic affluence and an abundant water supply.
Water consumption increases as household income increases. This is an axiomatic truth. However, water consumption since the mid- 1990s has been steady and stable in most cities. This is good news even though on-going urbanization of rural areas will demand more water supplies in the future. Regional disparity of precipitation has been noticeable in Korea. The Han River and the Kum River are relatively plentiful, whereas the Nakdong River and the Yeongsan River are not. Drinking water supplies are a serious problem to Busan residents located at the southernmost port at the end of the Nakdong River.
Industrial and urban water use in the Daegu area above Busan and less than par wastewater treatment in the upper and middle parts of the River basin make the situation worse. The Jeolla region has been used as farmland, so that scarcity of water made the Japanese colonial government build the first multi-purpose dam on the Seomjin River in 1926. The Seomjin River dam's height was 64 meters and 344.2 meters long, and the reservoir is 40,000 cubic meters.
Minimizing floods in the summer months has been another major purpose and function of the multi-purpose dams built in Korea. The summer months in Korea meant flooding. The damage of the summer floods created serious loss not only to human lives but of properties and crops.
For the past 10 years, more than 90 percent of deaths from natural disasters were caused by water-related catastrophes, according to KOWACO. Moreover, victims of water-related incidents have more than doubled since 1996. Damages from water and climate disasters have cost 1.3 trillion won during the last decade, surpassing damages by traffic accidents or fires. El Nino-caused floods hit the northern part of the nation, and increased the number of human victims, property loss and damage. The contribution of the multi-purpose dams to counter against these problems has been significant. Ultimately, human settlement in flood-prone areas should be discouraged. New land use planning and regulations are necessary. It is an irony for a small nation to confront such flooding in the summer and water scarcity, drought, in spring, fall and winter seasons.
Future Task
Dams' water supplies have been threatened by pollution from farmland and small businesses. Pollution from industrial parks and big businesses has been closely regulated by the Ministry of Environment. Yet, cow, hog and chicken waste have not been regulated at all. The wastewater treatment systems were installed at 60 percent of the Korean communities. The government has a plan to increase it to 92 percent by 2011. Septic tanks are not effectively installed in farm houses. The best available technology or the best practicable technology has not been seriously discussed. River water quality deteriorated in the 1990s, despite serious central governmental investment in installing wastewater treatment
Korean local governments are basically responsible for managing drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. However, they do not have enough money to build and manage modern wastewater plants. The authoritarian central government forced local governments to build the wastewater plants, but financing the plants after a new local autonomous government law in 1995 made the situation worse. Paying the principal and interest for the construction loans and financing the operation costs are not easy for many local governments. The wealth of the nation is concentrated in Seoul and its vicinity and a few major cities. Many local governments simply cannot finance the wastewater plants with their own resources.
The Ministry of Environment has attempted to create a buffer zone between the river and the human settlements, and regulations based upon the river basin's total amount of pollution. The Ministry does not have money to purchase the buffer zone, and the residents violently protested the buffer zone concept on the grounds of their property rights. The Ministry finally imposed a water use fee to the affluent lower river basin residents to create the funds for the relatively poor upper river basin residents. It is a kind of cost-sharing method to transfer money from the affluent area to the less affluent area. The Han River and the Nakdong River basins have also adopted the same plan, and other river basins will soon follow.
Climate Change
Unpredictable weather from climate change forces Korea to prepare for longer dry seasons and greater flooding in summer months. However, there are no more sites for multi-purpose dam construction. Therefore, the renewal or remodeling of the existing dams is wise for the nation, and to maintain the water quality of dams and rivers, water pollution should be prevented or minimized with the modernization of the wastewater plants and farming methods.
North Korea's water resources management has affected South Korea's rivers in the border area, because several rivers originate from the North and flow into the South. North Korea's Kumkang Mountain Dam (or Imnam Dam, official name in the North) has seriously reduced the flow of the river into the North Han River by 12 percent and Imjin River originating from the North has flooded the lower basin in the South during summer months in the past. The Kumkang Dam can be a “weapon” as a flood attack on the South; so that the South built the “Peace Dam” to block a possible flood attack in 2003. It also regulated the normal river flow; it has already dried up the Hwacheon Dam. The two Koreas should create a joint water resource management system for the border area, but the political tension and the Cold War mood has not made any positive discussion possible so far.
Multi-purpose dams have provided many advantages to Korea, but maintenance of such dams require constant attention and care by KOWACO, citizens, farmers, businessmen, women and environmentalists. All dams should be renewed and remodeled for reserving more water and for preventing floods and to generate more hydro-electric power.
Future dam renewal and remodeling works require environmentally friendly procedures, including a fish path. The Grand Canyon Dam in the United States has changed the arid American West to become a livable and prosperous region as a result of a miraculous scientific and engineering public work project to overcome the Great Depression in the 1930s. It is a famous tourist spot. South Korean multipurpose dams are comparable to the Grand Canyon Dam in launching Korea's miraculous economic development with impressive civil engineering projects in the 1960s and the 1970s.
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