The Yeongsan River area had considerably less amount of rainfall. Moreover, due to widened river up to 500m and lowered riverbed (1.5 to 2.5m), there was no inundation damage. Almost undertakings like weirs construction, dredging work, creation of riverside ecological zones and farmland remodeling has been completed. And cofferdams and construction roads were also removed. Now the status of river flow shows stable and natural.
Iksan Regional Construction Management Administration announced that average river level has dropped to 2.53m out of investigation on May-June 2011 with accumulated rainfall of 248mm and same period of 2010. Moreover, though the rainfall of June 23 to 26 (72.8mm) 2011 and June 30 to July 3 of this year shows similar amount, the average river level of this year has fallen as much as 2.51m.
The effect of the Project on the Yeongsan River has been proved in this heavy rainfall. Last year, from August 15 to 18, 3-day downpour with 110mm made orchards, farmlands and roads in Yeongsanpo and Gujinpo of Naju City inundated. This year, in May 10 to 11 with 137mm rainfall couldn’t damage anything.
Farmers who cultivate mainly water parsley unanimously whooped up the Project for having no flood damage this year. “Before the project, narrow river width and poor amount of riverwater had been problems. Therefore whenever it rains, we had to see inundation. But this year our river has just been improved in width and depth so that we had no damage at all”, Mr. Park Bong-gil (72), local resident said in the interview with Yonhap News.
In Samyeong-dong, Naju City, located downstream from the confluence of the Yeongsan River and the Jiseok Stream, a riverside retention area with 2 million m². This was designed to hold the overflowed water from the Yeongsan River when the river level goes high in 9.4m. By changing this ex-arable field into artificial pool which can contain 7.2 million tons of water, the authority plans to reduce inundation damage around Yeongsanpo and Gujinpo, the lower stream areas. The area which stretches 19km from the Seungchon Weir of the upper stream to the Juksan Weir of downstream is under works of ecoparks, wetland, and planting trees with no damage out of heavy rains.
