철도건설사업의 주요 환경영향에 관한 연구

Abstract

Recently, railroad Abstract construction projects have been significantly increased in both number and total length as national transport policy pays an attention to railroad system more than other systems. Accordingly, it is highly demanded to develop researches related to central effects of railroad construction on environment either during construction or in operation. This study, therefore, deals with two general topics related to railroad construction; 1) the understanding of general environmental effects mainly focused on environmental impact assessment and 2) the procedure and measure of impact assessment. In order to advance our understanding of the environmental effects involved, two types of transport infrastructures, which are railroad and vehicle road, have been compared in terms of environmental valuation such as energy efficiency, social cost and etc. It is identified that railroad is more effective than vehicle road in terms of evaluating overall environmental costs. This result indicates that the environmentally-friendly characteristics of railroad can be a foundation to establish national transport infrastructure as well as to stimulate its investment programs. In addition, current status and future direction of railroad policy, planning of national railroad network were briefly examined. The characteristics of environmental assessments for both railroad planning and railroad construction has been analyzed based on Preliminary Environmental Review System (PERS) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), respectively. The result shows that railroad is superior to vehicle road in terms of minimizing the change in ecosystem, but inferior to it in terms of directly impacting people, for example, by noise. Based on case studies of environmental assessments of railroad in foreign countries, it is suggested that in near future Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) be required to play an important role in decision-making process for railroad planning in Korea. In that case, operating Scoping Committee can be a supplementary tool for decision-making as well. Quantification and systematic analysis of environmental impacts from four different fields including ecosystem, groundwater, soil, and noise/vibration have been carried out. Their mitigation measures to minimize environmental impacts are briefly discussed. This study is the first compilation of various environmental impacts of railroad planning and construction. Although the result may not be sufficient for solving all types of environmental problems related to railroads, we hope that it can be a first step for advancing future directions of railroad-related researches as follows: 1) developing assessment guidelines for more effective environmental assessment 2) creating assessment tools and indicators for evaluating plans and projects 3) establishing monitoring system and survey methods 4) developing environmental standards and prediction measures for impacts, especially of noise, groundwater and etc.