Hapcheon-gun Conducts Water Quality Monitoring to Prevent River Pollution

Proactive Management through Water Quality Testing of Rivers near Livestock Facilities

Hapcheon-gun, Gyeongnam Province, will conduct water quality monitoring of rivers adjacent to livestock facilities starting this year to prevent water pollution in advance.

Livestock facilities account for a large proportion of the main sources of water pollution in rural areas. Hapcheon-gun has about 1,600 livestock farms, with the highest number of Korean beef cattle (Hanwoo) in Gyeongnam and the second highest number of pig farms after Gimhae City.

Hapcheon County Office building.

Accordingly, the county has established this new policy to monitor water quality changes in rivers adjacent to livestock facilities and to intensively manage pollution sources.

The targets are seven rivers near pig farms that directly discharge treated water from livestock manure purification discharge facilities: Naegokcheon, Myosancheon, Icheoncheon, Cheonghyeoncheon, Wolgwangcheon, Gapsancheon, and Hwanggyecheon.

From May to October, excluding the dry season, water quality tests (five items) will be conducted at least once a month, and water quality upstream and downstream will be compared and analyzed.

The results will be databased and further used as materials for guidance and inspection of livestock farms that are pollution sources in rivers where water quality has deteriorated.

Seo Won-ho, Director of the Environmental Hygiene Division, said, “Livestock manure contains high levels of organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients, which have a significant impact on water pollution when discharged into rivers. We will do our best to manage water pollution sources through this water quality monitoring.”