The mechanism of water pollution in Lake Shihwa, one of highly eutrophicated artificial lakes in Korea, has been studied using a numerical 3D physical-biochemical coupled model. In this study, the model was applied to estimate the contribution of land-based pollutant load to water quality of heavily polluted Lake Shihwa. The chemical oxygen demand(COD) was adopted as an index of the lake water quality, and the spatial distribution of an average COD concentration during the summer from 1999 to 2000 was simulated by the model. The simulated COD showed a good agreement with the observed data. According to reproducibility of COD, the highest levels between 8 and 9 mg/L were shown at the inner site of the lake with inflow of many rivers and ditches, while the lowest was found to be about 5 mg/L at the southwestern site near to dike gate. In the prediction of water quality of Lake Shihwa, COD showed still higher levels than 3 mg/L in case of reduction of 95% for land-based pollutant load. This suggests that the curtailment of land-based pollutant load is not only sufficient but the improvement of sediment quality or the increase of seawater exchange should be considered together to improve a water quality in Lake Shihwa.

In this study, the PHYTO-PAM-fluorometric method was used to evaluate the ETRmax in terms of sensitivity to DIN/DIP against 14 microalgae: Prorocentrum micans, Heterocapsa triquetra, Gymnodinium impudicum, Gymnodinium catenatum, Amphidinium caterae, Chlorella vulgaris, Chroococcus minutus, Microcystis aeruginosa, Chlorella ellipsoidea, Nannochloris oculata, Oocystis lacustris, Chroomonas salina, Gloeocystis gigas, and Prymnessium parvum. We found that P. micans, H. triquetra, and A. caterae exposed to the maximum level of DIN/DIP were significantly smaller in the ETRmax than that of the minimum and moderate mixture. Unlikely the ETRmax, the initial slope alpha was not significantly different at the level of 60 DIN/DIP. In G. catenatum, the moderate levels of 15 and 20 in DIN/DIP were found to be significantly different from the ETRmax at Ch1-Ch4. Gymnodinium impudicum had a higher value than that of the ETRmax than that of dinoflagellates used in this study, ranging from 306.1 (Ch4, DIN/DIP: 10) to 520.1 (Ch4, DIN/DIP: 30). The ETRmax value obtained from other microalgae was similar to G. impudicum at any of the ratios of DIN/DIP and channels. Consequently, the influence of offshore water current assures us of the suppression of photosynthesis and electron transport rate in dinoflagellates. Gymnodinium impudicum has not been researched in the area of red tides in Korea, but it will be enough to creat the massive algal blooms in the future because of higher potential photochemical availability.

In an attempt to evaluate the possibility of producing an organic fertilizer using sediments from coastal farming areas, the chemical composition, bacteriological quality and heavy metals in the sediments alkalized by quicklime and magnesium hydroxide were analyzed. The optimum reaction was obtained from the following conditions : a 1:4 mixture of dry sediment to food wastes and the addition of 30% quicklime to the mixture. According to the classification standard for compost constituent by Higgins, all composts had a low or intermediate grade in T-N and K2O content, a low grade in P2O5 and a high grade in CaO and MgO content. Stabilization by quicklime and magnesium hydroxide is likely to inhibit the bacterial decomposition of organic matter and the activity of pathogenic organisms. Raising the pH of stabilized sediments to 12 for 2 hours(PSRP criteria of EPA) allowed 99.99% of the coliform group, fecal group and viable cell count to be reduced. The results suggested that the crude fertilizer produced by alkaline stabilization method was innoxious and thereby the sediments from coastal farming areas could be used as organic fertilizer.