Abstract
Korea has been operating groundwater monitoring systems since 1996 as the Groundwater Act enacted in 1994 enforces nationwide monitoring. Currently, there are six main groundwater monitoring networks operated by different government ministries with different purposes: National Groundwater Monitoring Network (NGMN), Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network (GQMN), Seawater Intrusion Monitoring Network (SIMN), Rural Groundwater Monitoring Network (RGMN), Subsidiary Groundwater Monitoring Network (SGMN), and Drinking Water Monitoring Network (DWMN). The Networks have a total of over 3500 monitoring wells and the majority of them are now equipped with automatic data loggers and remote terminal units. Most of the monitoring data are available to the public through internet websites. These Networks have provided scientific data for designing groundwater management plans and contributed to securing the groundwater resource particularly for recent prolonged drought seasons. Each Network, however, utilizes its own well-specifications, probes, and telecommunication protocols with minimal communication with other Networks, and thus duplicate installations of monitoring wells are not uncommon among different Networks. This mini-review introduces the current regulations and the Groundwater Monitoring Networks operated in Korea and provides some suggestions to improve the sustainability of the current groundwater monitoring system in Korea.
Highlights
Groundwater is the main water resource in drought seasons in the Republic of Korea [1,2,3]
In Korea, groundwater accounts for only 11% of the total annual water consumption, but the use of groundwater is intensively elevated during dry seasons [9]
Automatic measurement of the groundwater level is not mandatory, but a very high percentage (60.8%) of the monitoring wells are equipped with automatic data loggers and remote terminal units (RTU) for data transmission, thanks to the low maintenance cost of the electronic devices and internet services
Summary
Groundwater is the main water resource in drought seasons in the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea; Figure 1) [1,2,3]. In Korea, groundwater accounts for only 11% of the total annual water consumption, but the use of groundwater is intensively elevated during dry seasons [9]. Among the total annual financial investment on water resources, only 0.5% is allocated for groundwater resource and is spent mostly on additional groundwater development in dry seasons [10]. Recent multiple prolonged droughts have drawn much greater attention to the availability of groundwater, and numerous groundwater wells have been exploited in an effort to secure more water resources.
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