Journal of Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers ISSN:1738-3692(Print) 2093-7709(Online) 한국농공학회논문집

Various Best Management Practices (BMPs) have been suggested to reduce Nonpoint source pollutant loads from agricultural fields. However, very little research regarding water quality improvement with sediment trap has been performed in Korea. Thus, effects of sediment trap were investigated in this study. Three sediment traps were installed at the edge of six plots and flow and water quality of inflow and outflow were monitored and analyzed. It was found that approximately 64.1 % of flow reduction was observed. In addition, pollutant concentration of outflow was reduced by 39.0 % for BOD₅. For SS, COD_Mn, DOC, T-N, T-P, approximately 62.1 %, 43.4 %, 43.5 %, 40.0 %, and 41.2 % reduction were observed, respectively. Over 80 % and 90 % of pollutant loads were reduced from sediment trap #2 and #3 because of less outflow from plots covered with rice straw/straw mat. In case of intensive rainfall events occurred from July 26∼29, 2011, over 60 % of pollutant and 88.9 % of sediment reduction were observed from sediment trap #3. As shown in this study, small sediment traps could play important roles in reducing pollutant loads from agricultural fields. If proper management practices, such as rice straw/straw mat, are used to protect surface from rainfall impacts and rill formation, much pollutant reduction could be expected.