2004, Vol.13, No.6

Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.51

pISSN : 1225-7184
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kseia

The chemical composition and properties of soil were determined at selected sites, such asLoess plateau, Gobi and sand deserts in northern China, where most dust storms occur.Although the transport of this sort of dust storms to Korean peninsula is a well-documentedstudy tried to measure the chemical composition, including soil elements, anthropogenicelements and ions for soil samples so that certain properties of some major source regions ofAsian Dust can be provided. Furthermore, the results are classified into four types of soil likeLoess, Loess & sand, Gobi, and sand in order to identify the characteristics and difference amongthe types. (X/Al)crustvalues for each soil type were also calculated in this study and comparedwith those of other references including Asian Dust material(ADM). The results indicated thatCa contribution was higher than Al in all the soil types of this study including ADM and,compared with the values of urban area, contribution of anthropogenic elements such as Cr, Pb,composition, but it is also certain that the very source region soil composition resolved from thisstudy could support the enhanced study on Asian Dust phenomenon in Korea.

After the Rio declaration on environment and development in 1992, developed countries are undertaking “environmentally sustainable transportation (EST)” projects. To meet the needs for EST, current transportation policies in Korea are rapidly reforming and one of its concerns is modernizing and upgrading railway freight system. Planning new railroad construction projects is increasing and subsequent environmental impact assessment (EIA) demands improvements, especially in both the EIA and decision making systems. In this paper, we discuss the present status of EIA for railroad construction projects, especially, by analyzing the EIA documents for the last six years. The EIA for railroad construction projects accounts for only 4.9% of total 918 project EIAs during 1998-2003, and the portion is gradually increasing. Major environmental concerns for EIA in railroad construction projects were geomorphological and ecological changes, protection of rare organisms, air pollution, water pollution, waste management, and noise, etc. We compared characteristics of environmental impacts of railroad construction with those of vehicle road construction, based on environmental and construction-planning indicators appeared in Environmental Impact Statements. Railroad construction usually requires longer tunnels and bridges for a given length than those for vehicle road construction. In addition, the amounts of geomorphological and ecological changes (road-cutting, embankment, devegetation, etc.) in railroad construction were generally less than 50% of those in vehicle road construction. To develop environmentally friendly railway systems, monitoring studies for environmental impacts of railroads such as habitat fragmentation and road kills, dispersal of alien plants, tunnelling effects on groundwater and vegetation, and noise impacts are highly recommended.

Among large developmental projects, those of the government and public institutions withthe total budget of more than 50billion wons can be executed only when the feasibility of theproject has been testified through the procedure of preliminary feasibility study.Multi-purpose dams are public structures that can supply water, produce electricity, andcontrol flood, they belong to large national projects that require legal evaluation proceduressuch as preliminary feasibility study and environmental impact assessment(EIA).The index that should be considered to be important in dam plan is the migration ofresidents in submerged district. The importance in the preliminary feasibility study is 4.93points(98.6 in the scale of 100 at maximum). Among the 12 assessment elements of the policyand economy in the preliminary feasibility study, the element of environment assessmentisturned out to be 4.68 points in the assessment importance (93.5 in the scale of 100 at maximum),which is the second in the total ranking and the first in the field of policy, indicating that theelement is very important in dam construction planning.