Abstract

Water sources in volcanic Jeju Island are almost entirely dependent on groundwater because there are actually no perennial streams or rivers due to the permeable nature of surface soils derived from basaltic or trachytic rocks. Uncontrolled development of groundwater resulted in substantial water-level decline, groundwater pollution, and seawater intrusion in several places of the island. To maintain its sustainable groundwater, the provincial government has declared some parts of the island as the Special Groundwater Conservation/Management Area since 1994. Hence, all the activities for the groundwater development in the area should obtain official permit from relevant authorities. Furthermore, to acquire information on groundwater status, a network of groundwater monitoring was established to cover most of the low land and coastal areas with the installation of automatic monitoring systems since 2001. The analysis of the groundwater monitoring data indicated that the water levels had decreased at coastal area, especially in northern part of the island. Moreover, very high electrical conductivity (EC) levels and their increasing trends were observed in the eastern part, which was ascribable to seawater intrusion by intensive pumping in recent years. Water level decline and EC rise in the coastal area are expected to continue despite the present strict control on additional groundwater development.

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