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Long-Term Water Quality Fluctuations in the Seomjin River System Determined Using LOWESS and Seasonal Kendall Analyses

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Abstract

Analysis of pollutant emission, water quality, and flow rate trends and the influence of water quality of the primary stream of the Seomjin River system using measurement data provides important information for formulating water quality management policies. In this study, we identified specific characteristics based on changes in water quality using graphs of long-term (2011–2020) water quality data from the Seomjin River system. We conducted correlation and factor analyses of the following water quality survey parameters: temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), electrical conductivity (EC), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), and total organic carbon (TOC), and flow rate. Furthermore, we analyzed BOD and TP, which are designated as total maximum daily load management parameters, to examine the intrinsic properties of the group. In addition, seasonal Kendall tests and LOWESS analysis were conducted using long-term monitoring data to analyze the long-term trends of changes in water quality. According to the analysis results, at the target points, BOD was highly correlated with COD and TOC, and TP with SS, COD, and BOD, whereas pH and DO show low correlations. The fluctuation characteristics of BOD showed an overall “decreasing” trend. On the other hand, TP concentration showed an “increasing” trend. The characteristics of the water quality environment were identified using long-term water quality data. The results may contribute to developing a basic framework for proposing logical grounds and objective measures for long-term water quality management policies.

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Funding

This study was supported by the “Small Watershed Monitoring Project” of the Yeongsan River and Seomjin River Basin Management Committees funded by the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Korea, grant number 1345-402-260-01. This study was also supported by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Research, grant number NIER-2022-01-01-044. We thank the Ministry of Environment, and Yeongsan River and Seomjin River Basin Management Committees.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yeongsanriver Environment Research Laboratory, National Institute of Environmental Research, 5, Cheomdangwagi-Ro 208beon-gil, Buk-gu, Gwangju, 61011, Republic of Korea

    Don-Woo Ha, Jonghun Baek, Hongbin Shim, Byungwoong Choi, Youngjea Lee & Dong Seok Shin

  2. National Institute of Environmental Human Resources Development, Incheon, Republic of Korea

    Kang-Young Jung

Authors
  1. Don-Woo Ha
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  2. Jonghun Baek
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  3. Kang-Young Jung
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  4. Hongbin Shim
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  5. Byungwoong Choi
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  6. Youngjea Lee
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  7. Dong Seok Shin
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Contributions

Don-Woo Ha: data curation, formal analysis, methodology, visualization, writing—original draft; Jonghun Baek: investigation, resources, validation; Kang-Young Jung: methodology, validation; Hongbin Shim: investigation, resources; Byungwoong Choi: supervision; Youngjea Lee, supervision; Dong Seok Shin: conceptualization, formal analysis, funding acquisition, project administration, writing—review and editing. All authors have approved the sub-‘mitted version and have agreed to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dong Seok Shin.

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Ha, DW., Baek, J., Jung, KY. et al. Long-Term Water Quality Fluctuations in the Seomjin River System Determined Using LOWESS and Seasonal Kendall Analyses. Water Air Soil Pollut 233, 535 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-022-05928-8

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