(A) study on the development of a sustainability assessment strategy for integrated watershed management

Abstract

Despite a great deal of discussion on the concept of the “Sustainable Development”, the raw conceptual definition of the sustainable development is not suitable for the direct application to real management or planning problems. This study thus aims at the establishment of a sustainability assessment strategy for integrated water resource management in a watershed. At first, this thesis explores the general concepts of sustainable development and sustainability of water resource system and analyzes them in many ways. On this conceptual study, this thesis extracts the meaning of sustainability of a water resource system in the watershed management context. And an agreeable engineering definition of sustainability is discussed. Then the development of a framework of the assessment methodology proceeds, resulting in two categories of assessment criteria: contribution criteria and integrity maintenance criteria. A sustainability assessment-modification cycle using these criteria is suggested. And integration with the current temporal watershed management cycle to form a self-evolutionary management mechanism is proposed. Finally this thesis applies the framework to the cases of the Aral Sea disaster and Han River system in Korea, and analyzes the current states of water resource management. From these case studies some suggestions are made for future modification and enhancement of sustainability for the systems.