Water Quality Improvement in Gyeonggi Province's Four Major Rivers with 1 Trillion Won Investment

Water quality in Gyeonggi Province's four major rivers—the Anyang, Gyeongan, Hwangguji, and Shin rivers—is improving significantly.
According to the province, water quality pollution measurements taken on the four major rivers in May showed levels of 4.5ppm for the Anyang River ('97: 52.8ppm), 4.8ppm for the Gyeongan River ('02: 7.0ppm), 8.5ppm for the Hwangguji River ('00: 41.4ppm), and 6.1ppm for the Shin River ('96: 39.1ppm), with all four rivers demonstrating water quality below 10ppm (environmental standard Grade 5).

A provincial official stated, "In 2003, we invested 192.7 billion won in the four major rivers and newly built and expanded six wastewater treatment plants, significantly improving water quality." The official continued, "Going forward, we plan to invest 262.8 billion won in 2004 and 807 billion won from 2005 to 2006 in the four major rivers, implementing new and expanded wastewater treatment plants, sewage line maintenance, advanced treatment facility installation and operation to prevent algal blooms, measures to secure minimum river flows, replacement of concrete embankments with ecological embankments, artificial wetland creation, and grassland restoration."

In the case of the Anyang River specifically, factory and residential wastewater from the Gunpo area previously flowed into the river, and unprocessed residential wastewater of 31,800 tons per day from certain areas in Wonmi and Sosa districts of Bucheon was flowing into Mokgam Stream, a tributary, causing severe river water pollution.

However, the province established a comprehensive plan to restore the Anyang River, continuously implementing △new construction and expansion of wastewater treatment plants and sewage line maintenance, and simultaneously promoting △river maintenance water supply projects to prevent stream drying, resulting in the transformation of the river into a "living, breathing river where children can play," where fish such as crucian carp, pale chub, black-spotted charr, gudgeon, medaka, and carp now inhabit, and around 20 bird species including mallards, spot-billed ducks, northern shovelers, intermediate egrets, grey herons, squacco herons, and slaty-backed gulls now reside.

PPM (Parts Per Million) is…
A term representing one part per million
Primarily used when indicating extremely small quantities of substances, such as in environmental pollution
In the case of water quality pollution, one part per million (1ppm) refers to the level of pollution when 0.001g (one millionth of a kilogram) of pollutant is contained in 1 liter (1kg by weight) of water