President Kim Keun-ho of the Korea Water Resources Corp. (K-water) said the control of rivers has become crucial these days with huge floods and dry spells causing the prices of crops around the world to get out of hand. 

The CEO said Korea’s Four Rivers Restoration Project has been drawing global attention as they have been successfully controlling the four major rivers in Korea, preventing floods and boosting the popularity of the leisure and cultural facilities built along the banks of those rivers.

President Kim met with reporters a day before the opening of the World River Forum held on Sept. 20-21 at EXCO of the Inter-Burgo Hotel in Daegu sponsored by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs and the Office of National River Restoration.

Kim said the rivers restoration project has made Korea a leading nation in the area of river control, especially for developing countries that frequently suffer from floods and drought because it gives them great hope that they can learn from the Korean experience and be able to control floods and prevent drought damage in their countries.

He said K-water will hold consultations with the representatives of emerging nations at the forum to come up with detailed plans to control floods and prevent drought damage.

The CEO said the value of the global water market stands at 500 trillion won now and will rise to 1,000 trillion won in 2025, according to expert studies made at K-water.

He said a K-water team began with a survey of the upper reaches of the Punha River in China in 1994 and successfully conducted a total of 37 river survey projects in 20 countries. K-water recently got an order to build a hydroelectric dam in Pakistan for $460 million, part of 18 similar projects in 15 countries. He said the World River Forum will spur K-water to strengthen its moves to expand its overseas market.

K-water, with government support, has been engaged in clinching a water control infrastructure project in Thailand to reform the flood damage management system, which will be worth 12.4 trillion won in total.

He said K-water has a high chance to win the project as Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra signed an MOU on water resources project cooperation following her tour of the four major rivers in Korea to see how they are controlled in a show of the Thai government’s deep interest in Korea’s successful Four Rivers Restoration Project. 

Kim also promised that the World Rivers Forum will be continue to be held as an annual event to drum up attention toward the crucial importance of water and the control of water resources by building infrastructure.

He said the Four Rivers Restoration Project has made a huge contribution toward preventing floods and drought damage during the monsoon and typhoon seasons.

“Wonderful” and “amazing” were a few of the words the foreign participants at the World Rivers Forum said as they toured Kangjum Koryong Weir in Dalsung County near Daegu, a section of the Naktong River which was successfully built under the Four Rivers Restoration Project to control floods in the region. A participant said the weir was built in a way that preserved the water-friendly environment as well as the water resources. The 15 foreigners who toured the weir included those from Mongolia, Uganda, Peru, and Vietnam, including Vice Minister Puosuren Sarab of the Nature, Environment and Tourism Ministry of Mongolia, Director Hugo Zarab of the Peru Water Resources Office, and Legislator Rosemary Nansubu of Uganda.

They said they will urge their governments to take lessons from Korea’s Four Rivers Restoration Project, which has become an enormously valuable example of river and water control and to reflect them in their river control policies.