한강수질의 관리방안

Han River Management Policy

Among the rivers in Korea, the Han River is the largest, most important one, which runs through the Seoul metropolitan region in the west toward the yellow sea. In the Han River basin there live as many as 17.1 mil. people including appr, 11 mil, citizens in Seoul. The Seoul Metropolitan region, already containing appr. 40% of the nation's total populating, expectedly poses an ever-growing polluting burden to the Han River. Due to Korea's vigorous industrialization and heavy urbanization in the past quarter century, water pollution was observed to be increasing in the Han River until the mid-1980's, but thereafter the Han River began to improve little by little by virtue of the government's massive investment and all-out efforts in water preservation. Public awareness on the importance of environmental protection is increasing unprecedentedly. With a view to meeting people's growing demand for clean water and pleasant environment, the government established the "Comprehensive Mid-Term Environmental Conservation Plan" (1992∼1993) in 1991. According to the plan, 1,315 bil.won(1.7 bil.us$ ) is to be poured into the Han River Basin to install 113 water pollutant abatement plants including 43 treatment facilities. To successfully cope with the future's challenging need for the environmentally sound sustainable development, a variety of measures and an array of policies are going to be incorporated with emphasis on, -redistributing such polluting sources as population and industries -tightening control of the water pollutant discharge -restricting the pollution-accompanying land use -enhancing the assimilation capacity of the river -stirring up the public awareness and participation in the environment protection We hopefully anticipate that with those e(forts the Han River will improve as drawn in the attached "1996's Envisioned Han River Quality".