Phil-Goo Kang

Integrated permitting systems are being progressively implemented by governments worldwide owing to their beneficial effects on site-level environmental management. However, different countries have implemented different systems that reflect their own national conditions, resulting in varying efficacy. Based on experience from Korea, here, we propose an e-permit system that implements (i) package management of industries related to or within the value chain of permitted industries, (ii) site-specific best available techniques (BATs), (iii) automatic calculations of BAT-associated emission levels (BAT-AELs), and (iv) code-based management of environmental factors using a ReGreen-BAT (RG-BAT) diagram. The e-permit system improves permitting process efficiency and reduces the review period from 35 days to 2–23 days depending on the industry sector. Additionally, by leveraging big data collected through the Integrated Environmental Permitting System for post-permit management, administrative efficiency could be further improved. Integrating industries related to or within the value chain of the target industries in the Integrated Environmental Management System (IEMS) can reduce pollution, improve resource circulation, and promote energy efficiency and cost savings. When selecting BATs, the balloon effect and internal site-specific factors should be evaluated to realize more tailored and acceptable BAT selection. Automation of BAT-AEL calculations using Python considerably reduces the processing time to 2–3 weeks. The RG-BAT diagram helps visualize BAT effectiveness and allows businesses to easily identify suitable BATs. The insights gained herein indicate that countries implementing IEMS can benefit from sharing implementation experiences and should collaborate on the development of advanced systems.

The implementation of the “Act on the Integrated Control of Pollutant-Discharging Facilities” both simplifies the permitting process and improves environmental performance by managing pollutant discharge facilities of the business unit in industrial sectors. The best available techniques (BAT) reference documents (BREF), which play a pivotal role in the Act, include the state-of-the-art techniques that not only reduce pollutant emission, but also consider economic benefits. The concepts of BAT and BREF in the Act in Korea had been mostly derived from the European Union’s (EU’s) BAT system. Therefore, there are significant similarities between Korea and the EU in terms of both the publication procedures and the content of BREF. On the other hand, the types of sectors covered in the BREF vary due to differences in the major industrial characteristics between Korea and the EU. Additionally, there is a distinction in the legal role of applying BAT as a permitting condition for pollutant-discharging facilities. In Korea, the application of BAT is a recommendation, whereas the EU enforces BAT Conclusions (BATC) as a legal requirement. Since the introduction of BATC, the EU has seen positive results from compulsory BAT application in terms of environmental performance and industrial competitiveness. The purpose of this study is to survey the current status and implementation of BREF in the EU, and to compare BREF and relevant exemplary studies between Korea and the EU. Based on insights derived from these cases, this study suggests future directions for BREF research in Korea.

The construction and operation of information systems are valuable for the implementation of an integrated environmental permit system (IEPS). This study introduces an IEPS and examines its implementation in South Korea. Using operational cases from the IEPS, we demonstrate how the system is structured for each permit application procedure and the mechanisms by which permits are processed. In South Korea, the operation of an IEPS has made it easy to track the progress of permits and immediately notify the relevant authorities regarding permit applications and supplementary requests, thereby reducing the time required for permit reviews and amendments. Furthermore, disclosing the review results and other permit information ensures the reliability of permits. Additionally, the regular input of data, such as pollutant monitoring data from facilities and compliance with permit conditions, into the IEPS facilitates the stable management of all data related to facility permits and operations. Regulatory agencies can utilize the database within the IEPS to gain insight into facility conditions before conducting on-site inspections, ultimately reducing the time required for such inspections. Moreover, by accessing past inspection records through this system, facilities requiring more focused management can be identified, and data from the system can be used in planning future inspections.

The textile industry in South Korea is characterized by excessive water consumption, high concentrations of wastewater, hazardous chemicals, and high energy consumption. This study aimed to analyze Best Available Techniques Reference Documents (BREFs) based on best available techniques (BATs) and BAT-associated emission levels (BAT-AELs) and identify potential solutions for tackling environmental pressure from the South Korean textile industry. Therefore, the existing practices of the textile dyeing and finishing industry in South Korea were compared with those from the BREFs of the European Union. Many existing BATs in South Korea are related to reducing water consumption. There is also a strong focus on BATs for reducing wastewater discharge and achieving energy-saving during treatment rather than after treatment, which differs from other industries. Moreover, BAT-AELs were derived for chemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, and total nitrogen for treating non-biodegradable, highly polluted wastewater. Furthermore, BREFs related to atmospheric pollution included dust generated from the heated fabrics in the finishing process that contained cadmium and phenolic hydrogen chloride from dyes and raw materials in the fabrics. Notably, the European Union has not specified BAT-AELs for the textile industry, whereas South Korea has tailored BAT-AELs for toxic and hazardous chemicals. Thus, numerous green techniques to reduce emissions and energy consumption are being implemented in South Korea.

New approaches and techniques are required for environmental management in workplaces that emit pollutants. The best available techniques (BATs) that are suggested by the integrated environmental permit system (IEPS) play a pivotal role in providing state-of-the-art approaches and techniques to workplaces. For the workplaces that install facilities with the BATs, it is necessary to perform real-time monitoring to determine whether pollutant emission facilities and treatment facilities are operating normally and whether such facilities can maintain the optimal condition during the emission of pollutants. The environmental management measures used before the IEPS had limitations for workplaces that are subjected to integrated environmental management because they consider the entire workplace as a single pollution source by combining all media. In addition, only the emission concentrations and amounts of pollutants were monitored because only the points at which most pollutants are discharged, i.e., stacks for air pollutant emission facilities and final effluent outlets for water pollutant emission facilities, are monitored. These monitoring approaches in a variety of facilities involve considerable costs, and most of them (95% for stacks in workplaces under IEPS, Korea) cannot perform real-time observation even though some of them are capable of it (5% for stacks managed by Tele Monitoring System, TMS). In this study, the applicability of a wireless sensor monitoring network was examined as a new approach for environmental management in workplaces. Based on the sensor monitoring network, surrogate parameters that can indirectly monitor the critical operating factors of pollutant emission and prevention facilities were developed and then measured in real time to examine the status of these facilities. Surrogate parameters can be used instead of directly measuring pollutants as the former has high efficiency, such as cost reduction, and can provide reliable data on the emission characteristics of pollutants. The wireless network is based on an Internet of Things (IoT) platform under real-time conditions in the emission and production facilities in a workplace. This study suggested that a wireless network using the IoT platform improves the BAT assessment methodology to understand the efficiency of environmental pollution reduction and the economic contribution to the workplace.

일상 생활 속에서의 스마트 기기와 AI에 대한 의존도가 높아지면서, 시각 장애인 보조, 인간컴퓨터 상호 작용 등 다양한 분야에 접목 가능한 이미지 캡션 생성 기술의 중요성이 높아지고 있다. 본 논문에서는 캡션 생성 기능의 향상을 위해 명사, 동사와 같은 언어의 품사(POS) 정보를 이미지로부터 추출하여 활용하는 새로운 기법을 제안한다. 제안하는 모델은 복수의 CNN 인코더를 품사 별로 학습하여 품사별 특징 벡터를 추출한 후, 추출한 품사 벡터를 LSTM에 입력하여 캡션을 생성한다. 제안한 모델은 Flickr30k, MS-COCO 데이터 셋에 대해 실험을 진행하며, 사람을 대상으로 2가지 설문 조사를 진행하여 결과물의 실질적인 유효성을 검증한다.

Lakes nested in forested watersheds play an important role in mediating the concentrations and fluxes of dissolved organic matter. We compared long-term patterns of concentrations and fluxes of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved organic (DON) and inorganic nitrogen (DIN) in aquatic ecosystems of the Arbutus Lake watershed to evaluate how a lake nested in a forested watershed affects the sources (e.g., production) and sinks (e.g., retention) of DOC and DON in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, USA. We observed no significant long-term changes of DOC and DON in the lake outlet since 1983 and 1994, respectively. However, the temporal patterns of DOC and DON concentrations in the lake inlet showed significant seasonality such as increases during the vegetation-growing season along with notable decreases in the dormant season. A comparison of mass balances between inlet and outlet for the period from 2000 to 2009 suggested that the lake was a sink of DOC (mean of influx minus outflux: +1140 mol C ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). In contrast, the difference of discharge-weighted DON concentrations (mean of inlet minus outlet: −1.0 µmol N L⁻¹) between inlet and outlet was much smaller than the discharge-weighted DOC concentrations (average of inlet minus outlet: + 87 µmol C L⁻¹). DON fluxes showed considerable variation among years (mean of influx minus outflux: +8 mol N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹; range of differences: −15 to 27 mol N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). DON exhibited low percent retention ((influx-outflux)/influx) (mean: 6.9 %, range: −34.8 to +31.2) compared to DOC (mean: 30.1 %, range: +9.2 to +44.1). The resultant increase of DON within the lake was closely linked with a net decrease of DIN through monthly Pearson correlation analysis, suggesting the importance of biotic factors in mediating lake DON dynamics. Our results show different relative retentions of DOC compared with DON, along with a larger retention of DIN than DON, suggesting that DOC and DON might display substantially different biogeochemical relationships in oligo-mesotrophic lakes nested forested watersheds and therefore different roles for a sink behavior for DOC compared to a producer of DON.