Abstract

Ecological Investigation of Newly Developed Artificial Floating Island

Author(s): Ahn CH, Lee S, Joo JC and Park JR*

The artificial floating island (AFI) is an artificial wetland located on the surface of water, and nowadays applied to various water environments. In this study, we newly developed AFI combining micro-bubble and photocatalytic technologies applied to contaminated stagnant water. In this study site, Hanryucheon, is a small urban stream used for drainage of rainwater in Ilsan newcity in Republic of Korea. We respectively monitored three points (inside of AFI, outside of AFI, no AFI) for water quality and biological parameters (i.e. phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthic invertebrate, fish, and terrestrial insect) of Hanryucheon. According to this results, biological parameters showed significant different depend on existence of AFI or not. Especially, we found that AFI highly contributes to the habitat for small and juvenile fish. But, water quality improvement effect was not clear because installed AFI was only pilot test size. Nevertheless, positive biological effect of AFI was a meaningful result in that addition of meiofauna habitat around of AFI. For future studies, change of biological parameters should monitor for long-term period, and more AFI installation will need to be carefully reviewed.