KEY WORDS
Seoul / Environment / Policy / Environmental Problem

Seoul, the capital city of Korea, covers an areas just 0.6% of the nation's land but accommodates 23% of the population (46.43 million). Seoul also accounts for much of the nation's functions. For example, Seoul accounts for 41.6% of domestic taxes, 69% of industrial tax, 34.8% of wholesale and retail sales, 32.9% of the total number of medical institutions, showing a heavy concentration of nation's functions.

With this high concentration of population and other functions, the city has been suffered from various environmental problems including air and water pollution, solid waste problem, and decrease in green space. This paper examines critical environmental issues Seoul metropolitan is now facing. Having examined key environmental issues of Seoul, some policy recommendations will be made for environment management of Seoul Metropolitan Government.

2. Environmental Problems of Seoul Metropolitan and Its Responses

Four areas of environmental problems of Seoul need special attention. They include decrease in green space, air pollution problem, water pollution problem, and solid waste problem.

1) Decreasing Green Space

One hectare of forestry absorb 16 ton of CO₂ and gives 12 ton of O₂, which is equal amount of oxygen that 21 people breath for 1 year. Green space in urban area is thus a valuable resource for urban resident that provides not only spaces for recreation and amenity but also gives fresh air and absorb air pollutants. However, green space in Seoul has been decreasing rapidly.

Seoul city's total forestry area was 159.19Km² in 1995 and this was amount to 14.7m² per person. But in 1972, the forestry area was 31.7m² per person, twice larger than that of 1995. In addition, forestry area in greenbelt around Seoul is decreasing too. Total area of greenbelt around Seoul has not changed since 1974. However, land use pattern in the greenbelt area has been changing. For example, while the area of dwelling lot and other purpose lot was increasing, area of forestry and agricultural use was decreasing. Forestry area within the greenbelt around Seoul decreased from 121.97Km² in 1974 to 108.95 Km² in 1996. This decreased forestry area is equivalent to 4.5 times larger area than that of Youido in Seoul.

Furthermore, newly elected government promised during the election campaign that greenbelt would be re-adjusted. Actually, President Kim, Daejung ordered the MOE in March 1998 to examine the greenbelts designated areas without scientific foundations to rezone the areas to fit with the current situation. For example, two thirds of Ha'nam city and Eui'wang city are greenbelt districts and more than half of their residents are living in the greenbelt areas, resulting strong demand from these people to ease the greenbelt regulations. With presidential concern, a special commission on greenbelt is currently working on gathering more detained information about greenbelt now. Thus, it is expected that the greenbelt regulation will be deregulated soon.

However, critics says that changes in greenbelt policy would benefit only the urban wealthy and some businesses who owns 70 to 80 percent of greenbelt and agricultural land surrounding big cities, while destroying valuable greenspace around Seoul that has been preserved for more than 30 years.
 

2)Air Pollution in Seoul

Air quality in Seoul has been improved since 1988 and began to meet all the long term standard since 1991.
 

But during the winter, several areas in Seoul still fail to meet the environmental standards because of pollutants discharged from households heating. In addition, as shown in the [Table 4], the number of short term air quality standard violation is increasing in case of O₃ and NO₂, both of which are caused by pollutants emission from mobil source.
 

As shown in the [Table 5], air pollutant from mobil source is causing major urban air pollution problem in Seoul. Total pollutant from mobil source accounts for 80.7% of all pollutants discharged in Seoul. Except SO₂, mobile source accounts for the largest portion of each pollutant discharged in Seoul; 84.3% of TSP, 81.4% of NOx, 87.8% of CO, and 98.3% of HC. Thus, it is clear that reducing pollutant from mobil source is the key to Seoul city's air quality control policy.

Most of mobile source pollutant comes from vehicle using diesel engine such as bus and truck. These diesel engine using vehicle account for 54%, and 57% of pollutant discharged from mobile source in 1994 and 1995 respectively.
 

Air quality in the subway stations and subway malls are serious too. Subway stations are heavily polluted by microdust and other pollutants, exceeding environmental standards by several times in some stations. However, according to the air quality data released by the Ministry of Environment(MOE), air quality of subway station and subway mall is not a serious problem. As shown in the [Table 6], underground air quality meets all the environmental standards. But the problem of these data is that it does not show some toxic air pollutants level of underground air quality. This problem becomes evident when we look into toxic air pollutant level in the subway stations.
 

As shown in the [Table 7], data revealed by Han'yang University tells quite different story. Toxic air pollutants in subway station was reported very serious. Radon execceds up to 2.5 times higher than environmental standard and asbestos level in most subway station shows higher than environmental standards.
 
 

Also, yellow dust cloud blow over Seoul during the spring. Significant amount of air pollutant is moving across national boundry and causing significant trans-boundariy air pollution problems. One recent study conducted by Korea Environment Institute reported that 16.2% of SO₂ deposits in South Korea was due to transboundary pollutants from China(Chosun Newspaper. 1997.4.21). Since the estimated amount of pollutants deposits in countires were obtained from a simulation model, the amount of pollutant deposits in North East Asia countries due to transboundary pollutants are debatable. However, the point is that establishing a more close cooperative relationship among countries in this region are becoming more and more important.

3)Water Pollution in Seoul

(1) Quality of Water Resource

The most serious water pollution problem Seoul is facing now is contamination of the Paldang water reservoir which is the major portable water resource for some 20 million people residing in the metropolitan area of Seoul and its vicinity. Recently, it was reported that the water quality of Paldang water reservoir was lowered to grade three water quality. This took place in spite of the use of 440 billion won over the past five years to improve the water quality.

The major resaon of water quality degradation in the Paldang was deregulation of housing and construction in the semi-farmland alongside the Han River since the revision of the National Land Utilization and Management Law in 1994. Since then, housing and construction projects have taken place at random even alongside the upper stream of the river in the northern part of Kyonggi Province, and in the Kangwon Province and Chungchong-pukto Provincial area.

Furthermore, as of September 1997, it was reported that 31 regular 18 hole golf courses are in operation or under construction near the Paldang area. Also, in the Kwangju, Namyangju and Yoju areas, which are adjacent to Paldang, nine country clubs are in operation with 13 more being constructied.

According to the MOE, since the revision of the National Land Utilization and Management Law in 1994, pollution sources and pollutant discharge in Paldang Special Preservation Areas increased dramatically as shown in the [Table 8].
 

More serious problem is that the upper stream areas of North Han River and Sourth Han River was not designated as a Special Preservation Area for Paldang Water Reservoir. As a result, 133,700 ton of untreated sewage or equivalent to 44 percent of total sewage generated in the upper areas of North Han River goes directly to the North Han River and 140,638 ton of untreated sewage or 36 percent of total sewage generated in the upper areas of South Han River goes directly to the South Han River, causing a rapid deteriation of water quality in Paldang Water Reservoir. In addition, four cities and three counties within the Special Water Conservation Designated Areas generated 142,600 ton of sewage daily and 29 percent of this sewage goes directly to the Paldang Water Reservior without any treatment. As a result, 224,134 ton of sewage which is equivalent to 38% of total sewage generated daily from the upper areas of North Han River, South Han River, and from designated areas are contaminating Paldang water quality (Chosun Newspaper, 1998.5.3).

(2) Problem of Water Supply Facilities

Seoul produce 4.89 million tons of piped water per day at 5 intake plants and 10 filtration plants. The source waster is secured from the Han River and the tap water supply ratio is 99.9% now.
 

The total extension of water pipes in Seoul is 18,010 Km as shown in the [Table 9]. Problem of water pipes was that 15,256 Km of water pipes are 15 years old or older and made of corrosive pipes, resulting in deteration of tap water quality. However, this problem was improved because 10,786 Km of these old pipes were replaced by the end of 1997. Seoul is planning to replace remaining 4,470 Km of old pipes by the year 2005. This will improve the tap water quality greatly and prevent looses from leakage. But, until the replacement of old water pipes is completed, problem of tap water quality seems likely to persist because sterlized and sanitized tap water is contaminated during its supply through these old water pipes. Actually, second contamination of tap water quality problem was reported serious. According to one research result, tap water examined at the point of 13.5 Km away from filtration plant shows number of bacteria as many as 310 per mililiter which is three times higher than drinking water quality standards (Kyunghyang Newspaper, 1997.5.22).
 

Another problem associated with tap water is that an average rate of tap water in Seoul is 291won/m³, only 73.7% of the production cost of 395won/m³. Comparing tap water rate with other cities in Korea and foreign countries, it is much lower. Since under priced tap water rate encourages Seoul citizen to wastes tap water, city government is planning to increase the rate substantially.
 

(3) Sewage Treatment Problem

Currently, sewage treatment ratio of Seoul is about 81% and this ratio is expected to increase to 100% when sewage system expansion work is finished in 1998. Thus, there seems no problem when we see this promising sewage treatment plan announced by the Seoul Metroplitan Government.
 
 
 

However, the problem with current sewage system in Seoul is that 88% of sewage produced in Seoul is collected and treated on the basis of combined sewer system. Since combined sewer system collect and treat rain and waste water all together without separating them, it poses a serious treatment difficulties. For example, water qualtiy of combined sewage that goes to treatment facilities ranges from 57 to 111 ppm in BOD. However since sewage treatment plant was built to operate most efficiently at the water quality of 150 ppm or over, it causes inefficient operation of treatment plant.
 

Another problem of sewage system reported is that there are broken or mis-connected sewer conduits every 5.2m and causing inflow of underground water through this broken or misconnected point. This makes BOD level of water quality lower again and causing inefficient operation of sewage treatment plants (Kim, 1995:2). In addition, outflow of waste water from this fractured sewage conduit is causing groundwater contamination. Replacing the combined sewer with separate sewer poses tremendous financial burden on Seoul. However this seems beyond Seoul's financial capacity. Seoul may find out broken or misconnected sewer conduits and fix them. However this also require a tremendous manpower as well as budget.

One major reason of this problem mainly comes from the fact that sewage system in Seoul depends almost exclusively on the large scale sewage treatment facilities. There are four large sewage treatment facilities in Seoul and all sewage discharged in Seoul are collected into combined sewage conduit, making upper reaches of streams dry. Thus, Seoul is planning small or medium scale sewage treatment facilities on the uper reaches of streams where possible. However, this small scale treatment facilities is expected to be built on the places where no sewer conduit are available now. Thus, advantages of building small and medium scale treatment facilities will not be high.

(4) Contamination of Groundwater

Groundwater pollution in Seoul is serious too. Since groundwater flows only 3 to 30 meters a year, it is very difficult to clean up the contaminated groundwater once it is polluted. It is estimated that there are 94 million tons of groundwater available a year in Seoul and total amount of groundwater use is about 30.4 million tons per year in Seoul.

According to the research conducted by the Seoul Development Institute, there are 17,624 groundwater wells in Seoul. Of these, 4.1% are being used for drinking, 84.2% for domestics, 0.1% for agricultural and 11.6% are being used for industrial use. With regard to groundwater for drinking purpose, more than 90% of groundwater wells for drinking in case of emergency were find out inadequate because of contamination(SDI, 1995). Similar result was obtained from another study on groundwater in Seoul. According to the research conducted by the Rural Development Corporation, 88.5% of ground water in Seoul is polluted to inadequate for drinking. Of 209 emergency wells in Seoul, only 15 emergency wells passed for drinking water quality test(Chosun Newspaper, 1997.3.13).

Sources of groundwater pollutants are leakage from sewer conduits, septic tanks, underground storage tanks and latrines. Also TCE (Trichloroethylene) and PCE (Tetrachloroethylene) discharge from more than 8000 laundries, hazardous wastewater from many small scale manufacturing factories in Seoul are seriously contaminating groundwater in Seoul (SDI, 1995).

Since leakage from broken or misconnected sewage conduit takes the largest part of contaminating groundwater, improving sewer conduit can alleviate groundwater problem too. However, groundwater management has been left largely untouched until the Groundwater Act was established in 1994. There is no administrative unit exclusively responsible for the groundwater management yet. Sewage treatment unit of Seoul is manageing groundwater together. Thus, it is necessary to establish administrative unit for groundwater management too.

4)Solid Waste Problem

Wastes are classified largely into domestic and industrial waste in Korea. Industrial wastes are further classified into domestic-type, facility-type, construction, and designated wastes. Domestic wastes are wastes generated in homes and small establishments, and industrial wastes are those generated from business. Desingated wastes includes used oils, acid and other substances generated by business and this type of wastes are especially harzardous to the environment. Central government is in charge of overseeing treatment of this designated wastes. However, treatment of designated waste are left to the discharger. They may treat their own waste or hire private agents. Except designated wastes, all other types of wastes are treated and managed under the responsibility of local government heads.

Seoul produced an annual total of 4,621,000 tons and daily total of 12,662 tons of domestic wastes. Construction wastes are generated daily 10,061 ton and this takes about 41% of total wastes generated in Seoul. [Table 14] shows generation and treatmnet of wastes in Seoul over the last four years(Tark, 1998).
 

Problem of waste management in Seoul is that the most of waste are dumped in Kimpo landfill site which was built on 20749 m² of reclaimed land on the west coast. However, the Kimpo landfill site is expected to be closed around year 2015 to 2017. Anticipating landfill closure in the near future, Seoul has been pursuing source reduction, recycling, and incineration in the order of policy priority. As a matter of fact, the amount of waste generated in Seoul can be greatly reduced if municipality can reduce amount of foods and vegetable wastes since these type of wastes is amount to 28% of total domestic wastes generated in Seoul. However, Seoul has not been quite sucessful neither in volume reduction or recycling.
 

There are several problems of increasing the recycling amount. First, there is no automatic facilities for sorting recyclable wastes. Sorting recyclable wastes has been done manually by sanitation workers and as a result, cost of collecting recyclable wastes is high and price of recycled goods are too high to compete against goods made from virgin materials. In addition, recycling technology is not advanced enough to produce high quality recycled good that can compete against other goods made from virgin materials. Second, most of recycling companies in Seoul are very small scale businesses and they usually do not have money to invest for new recycling plant with advanced technology. This again reduce competitiveness of recycled goods.

Dealing with food waste has problem too. Korean food is characterized by its high water and sodium content. Because of high water content of food waste, it is difficult to incinerate. Also, because of its high sodium content, it is not suitable for using them as compost for farming. Composting technology may overcome this problem. However there is no safe and widely accepted composting technology yet that can successfully deal with this sodium content of food wastes.

Seoul Metropolitan took severl measures to mitigate these domestic waste problem. They include enforcing volume based waste disposal sytem, separate collection of food waste, requiring to install food waste processor on restaurant, hotel, cafeteria, and department store that exceed certain scale, investing to build more composting plants, reducing packaging waste, restraining use of disposable goods. Also, Seoul adopted several programs to encourage recycling of wastes, including separate collection of recyclable wastes on certain days of week at door step, supporting recycling industries. One notable move to encourage recycling is strengthened financial support for recycling industries. With aim of providing 10 billion won (7.14 million dollars, $1=1400 won) in assistance for recycling industries from 1997 to 2000, the city is currently giving out long term loans within the limit of 300 million won per company at a low annual interest rate of 5%. Also, public offices are now changing procurement policy that gives priority to recycled goods when purchasing offical supplies. Whether these measure may bring desired effect need to be seen.

3. Problems of Environmental Management in Seoul and Recommendations for a Future Direction

To be an effective environmental management, Seoul Metropolitan Government need to put coordinated efforts in three different directions simultaneouly; first, strengthening individual environmental policy, second, establishing environmentally sound and sustainable policy structure and third, broadening environmentally friendly social basis(Moon, 1997).

1) Strengthening Individual Policy Areas

Strengthening and rationalizing individual policy area includes efforts to improve policy effectiveness by upgrading environmental regulations in air, water, waste, land use management, and by strengthening monitoring and enforcement activities. It also includes policy measures such as providing increased financial support for recycling industries, building more sewage treatment facilities, replacing old water pipes with new one. Reviewing Seoul Metropolitan environemntal policy reveals that Seoul has been focusing on strengthening individual policy area without giving due consideration on other dimensions of environmental policy. For example, environemntal budget expenditure for improving administrative and policy strucutre and citizen particizen account for only 0.1% of total environmental budget expenditure in 1996 (Seoul Metroploitan Government, 1998:54-58).

2) Establishing Environmentally Sound and Sustainable Policy Structure

While it is important to strengthen individual policy, strengthening and rationalizing individual policy area alone is not enough. There are many different types of urban policy and the goals and policy measures of this different types of policy can be contradicted against each other. For example, so long as urban developmental policy, such as housing, transportation, economic policy does not consider its environemntal consequences seriously at the policy making process, the aim and policy measures adopted by developmental policy can have a detrimental effect on urban environment. Thus, it is necessary to establish policy structure that can screen environmental effect of each policy in advance. For example, when preparing regional or urban structural planning, an important consideration can be given to integrate needs between socio-economic development and the bio-physical environment. The application of EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) for proposed major project such as roads, power stations, new settlements and waste disposal facilities can be used for this purpose. But it fails to address the borader and more strategic questions concerning the suitability or wisdom of a project. Here, the SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) comes in. SEA can be defined as "the formalised, systematic and comprehensive process of evaluating the environemntal impacts of a policy, plan or programmes and its alternatives, including the preparation of a written report on the findings of that evaluation, and using the findings in publicly accountable decision making' (Glasson, 1995). In short, SEA expands EIA from projects to policies, plans and programmes. Thus, incorporating the concept of SEA into policy making process can be proposed as a potentially valuable approach for establishing a coordinated and environemntally sound and sustainable urban policy structure.

3) Broadening Environmentally Friendly Social Basis

Lastly, broadening environemntally friendly social basis is the least attentioned dimension of environmental policy yet the most important policy dimensions Seoul need to put more efforts. Increasing environmental conscience by various kind of environmental education and enlightment programs may be a basic policy measure that can promote environmentally sound social basis. It is fortunate that the Seoul Metropolitan recently began to realize the importance of public awareness, participation and support for environmental policy making and implementation. Without wide spread public concerns about environmental problem, the local government do not have enough incentive for improving coordinated policy structure and strengthening individual environmental policy. This is especially true when chief executives of local authorities have been elected by citizen vote since June, 1995 in Korea.

Also, important needed effort for this purpose is to provide public with an accurate and timely environmental information. Knowing seriousness of environmental problems exactly and what kind of health effect an environmental degradation may have will further motivate public support and concerns for environmental policy.

Disclosure of environemntal information is not enough for building environmentally friendly social basis, however. Empowering citizen to monitor and control Seoul Metropolitan and businesses to preserve environment faithfully and to comply with environmental regulations is important too. So far, much of the environmental problems have been largely attributed to environmentally unsound behavioral pattern of citizen. It is needless to say that citizen has the primary responsibility of preserving environment. However, it has been cirticized that emphasizing citizen responsibility too much without allowing citizen participation in policy process is unfair. Also it has been argued that delegating power to citizen to control misconduct of government and business behavior is necessary(Moon & Park, 1995). By doing so, sound balance among three actors, government, business, and citizen, in policy process can be sustained. It also can prevent undue influence of business over environemntal policy. This was exactly what was meant for environemntal policy in the US when they allow citizen suit against government and business in case of their noncompliance with the purpose and regulation of National Environmental Preservation Act (Melnick, 1983).
 
 
 

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