For the assessment of the benthic community health of Jinhae Bay using the Benthic Pollution Index, macrobenthic fauna samples were seasonally collected from 23 different sites between February, 2011 and November, 2012. The macrobenthic community health status was classified as “Poor” or “Very Poor” except for the bay mouth part of Jinhae Bay at the northern part of Geoje Island. A large proportion of functional Group IV and even azoic conditions appeared due to summer hypoxia at sites in sheltered regions of Jinhae Bay. Some of the dominant species recruited after summer hypoxia were Paraprionospio patiens, Sigambra bassi, and Theora fragilis belong to typical opportunistic species. By comparing the BPI values of the macrobenthic communities from other special management areas of Korea, Jinhae Bay was considered to have the lowest condition that was heavily polluted among special management areas.

Forward Osmosis process has no, as yet, reliable method to predict fouling. This study utilized the concept of fouling reversibility to develop the index. The osmotically-driven reversibility index, denoted as ORI, was acquired by measuring the flux recovery after physical cleaning cycle and the protocols of ORI were developed systematically by considering all the critical factors of FO process. The applicability of ORI was examined by investigating FO process when treating secondary effluents from various full-scale wastewater treatment plants. The results demonstrated that the normalized final flux by fouling in FO was closely correlated to the ORI measurements with high statistical reliability. The ORI has proven to be useful evaluation parameter for continuous operation and determining cleaning cycles of FO process.

The objectives of this study were to analyze reservoir trophic state, based on Trophic State Index (TSI), spatial variation patterns of three zones (riverine, transition, and lacustrine zone), and empirical models through 20-years long-term data analysis. Trophic variables of TP and CHL-a were highest during the summer monsoon, and decreased along the main axis from the riverine to lacustrine zone. In the mean time, TN did not show the trend. Ratios of N:P and Secchi disc transparency (SD) increased from the riverine to lacustrine zone. The analysis of trophic state index (TSI) showed that mean TSI (TP) and TSI (CHL-a) were 62 and 57, respectively, and these values were highest in the transition zone during the summer. This zone should be managed well due to highest lake water pollution. The analysis of Trophic State Index Deviation (TSID) showed that algal growth was primarily limited by light penetration, and this was most pronounced in the monsoon season. The analysis of empirical models showed that the value of R2, based on CHL-SD model, was 0.30 (p < 0.0001) in the transition zone and the R2, based on TP-SD model, was 0.41 (p < 0.0001) in the transition zone.