Sihwa Lake Ecological Study Released

It was reported that 150,000 birds comprising 150 species, including storks and mallards, live in the southern tideland of Sihwa Lake, Hwaseong City, Gyeonggi Province.

It was also reported that a total of 359 plants and 12 mammals, including lynx and Korean water-deer, are living there.

The Korea Water Resources Corporation’s (KOWACO) Sihwa Lake Environmental Research Institute and the Council for Sustainable Development of the Sihwa Area announced on December 4 that they recently published a “Study on Building an Ecological Network in the Sihwa Lake.”

The report was published to find out what areas are needed for preservation of the ecological environment in the Sihwa Lake, ahead of the KOWACO’s drawing up plans to develop the Songsan Green City, a new city compound 17.2 million pyeong in size and consisting of ecological, cultural, leisure and high-tech research complexes, out of the 31.62 million pyeong-sized tideland south of Sihwa Lake.

The research team investigated the variety, number, location and migration path of plants, birds and mammals living in and nearby Sihwa Lake from October last year through the end of last month.

According to the report, the number of plants inhabiting the southern tideland was 359 in total, including 320 land plants and 39 sea plants.

In terms of the number of plants, calamagrostis epigeois, a perennial plant living in sandy soil of mountains or seashores, accounted for the highest proportion, 20%, followed by reeds (18%) and suaeda japonica Makino (13%), an annual plant that inhabits tidal flats.

Jae-Seong Hwang jsonhng@donga.com