Suitable Site Selection for Riparian Buffer Zone Construction in the Han River Basin

As a transition zone between the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in river basins, riparian buffers are important for providing ecosystem services such as water quality purification and biodiversity improvement.

The existing dam basin areas have a problem of weakening or decreasing ecosystem resilience due to damage and disturbance such as non-point pollution sources. Therefore, a suitable site must be selected to create a riparian buffer zone around the area where damage and disturbance occur.

However, the previous studies have limitations in that they do not consider socio-ecological characteristics and the changes that depend on various factors, such as approaches of various spatial scales, structural and institutional support, and physical conditions for each site.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to derive the final suitable site for a riparian buffer zone in a target site through the quantitative establishment of appropriate site selection indicators that take into consideration the social and environmental factors necessary for the establishment of a riparian buffer zone in a dam basin and the overlapping of established indicator data.

The Han River is the largest in Korea with the largest basin area and its major water resource facilities are distributed. In this study, a suitable site analysis was performed for the Chungju Dam and the Soyanggang Dam among the Han River water systems.

First, the items necessary for field analysis were derived based on a literature review. As a result, the indicators related to geographical conditions, soil environment, water quality environment, environmental ecology, and legal conditions were derived.

Second, data were constructed based on the digital elevation model, land cover map, water quality measurement network, and national environmental assessment map for the selected indicators. As a result, 21 different types of maps were derived according to geographical conditions, soil environment, water quality environment, environmental ecology, and legal standards.

Third, 21 data previously established by type were overlapped and prioritized to determine the appropriate locations for the Chungju Dam and the Soyanggang Dam. The Chungju Dam and Soyanggang Dam areas were ranked in the top 20 per cent among 106 and 42 zones, respectively. Finally, eight fields were derived for each dam through consultations and discussions with related organizations.

This study is meaningful in that it derived suitable items of analysis by considering various socio-ecological and legislative factors and selected suitable sites according to the priorities that were graded based on them. The process of this study can be applied to other studies for the creation of riparian buffer zones in the future.

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by "Development of living shoreline technology based on blue carbon science toward climate change adaptation" of Korea Institute of Marine Science & Technology Promotion (KIMST) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (KIMST-20220526). Also This research is a part of Environmental Fundamental Data Examination project of River Hangang Basin Management Committee