Verification of water environment monitoring network representativeness under estuary backwater effects

The multi-functional weirs constructed as part of the Four Major River Restoration Project in Korea are operated for water level management and may have a backwater effect in estuaries. If the main channel of the Nakdong River flows backward and affects the estuary water, the water quality in the estuaries may not be representative of the tributary water quality. In this study, we confirmed the representativeness of the existing water quality monitoring networks using spatiotemporally disperse electrical conductivity observations, self-organizing maps (SOMs) for monthly pattern analysis, and the LOcally WEighted Scatter plot Smoother (LOWESS) technique for trend analysis. The results show that the Namgang 4-1 site, which is located in the Nam River estuary, is not affected by the Nakdong River, while the Baekcheon (Sunwongyo) site in the Baekcheon estuary is always affected by the Nakdong River. Therefore, it is necessary to relocate the existing monitoring network or establish a new monitoring network for locations affected by mainstream backflow, as is seen in Baekcheon (Sunwongyo). The methods proposed in this study, including spatiotemporally diverse electrical conductivity measurement, dimensionless fluctuation values, SOMs, and LOWESS, can be used to verify the representativeness of water quality measurement networks in other regions.