President Lee Hak-soo of Korea Water Resources Corp. (K-Water) poses with U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris after they struck an MOU on the joint development of satellite technology for water disaster prevention at K-Water headquarters in Daejeon last Dec. 19. (Photos: K-Water)

Korea Water Resources Corp. (K-Water) is planning to co-develop satellite technology for water management with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States.

K-Water announced on Dec. 18, 2019, that it will sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NASA for the joint development of satellite technology for water management and water disaster prevention.

The MOU is a follow-up to the U.S.-Korea agreement on space cooperation in 2016. U.S. Ambassador to Korea Harry Harris will sign the MOU on behalf of the U.S. government.

The U.S.-Korea Space Cooperation is an agreement on which the two countries decided to cooperate with each other in the field of space science in 2016. From Korea, K-Water, the Korea Meteorological Administration, and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute participated, while from the U.S., NASA, NOAA, and USGS took part in.

According to the MOU, the two institutions will co-develop Korean version of NASA’s observation system "LIS," which uses global satellites to analyze climate change, water resources, and interaction with the earth surface.

The development of Korean LIS is a part of the Ministry of Environment's R&D project and the LIS will be set up by 2020, reflecting the geography and environmental characteristics of Korea.

K-Water plans to develop a “global satellite-based water disaster monitoring and evaluation prediction platform” based on the Korean LIS. This platform is a system that enables global-scale water cycle observation and analysis.

It can analyze various water resources information, such as soil moisture and drought index in units of 1 km of the Korean Peninsula and 10 km of Asia.

K-Water will use this information to identify the status of major water resources on the Korean peninsula and across Asia and to acquire various information such as water-related disasters like floods and droughts, green tide and red tide detection, and vegetation change observation.

Korea Water Resources Corp. (K-water) announced new technologies and R&D results at a meeting in the K-water Research Institute on Feb. 28.

K-water showed off the six core new technologies to control water, including one used to analyze satellite pictures to size up flood damage and others to check the water quality of newly built dams, especially green algae blooms. The company also test-operated its SMART water management system at the event.

K-water displayed the 12 R&D new results at its R&D institute, including technology to monitor the number of water supply channels needed and other new technologies for the management of water reservoirs developed at the institute.

Director Park Jae-young of the research facility said they will continue to carry on with research in connection with the 4th Industrial Revolution and other trends to continue to develop new technologies for water management aimed at making various contributions to the most effective and diverse water management in the country.

K-water also examined the results of 74 construction projects related to water dams across the country, especially their designs and values, finding 41.8 billion won saved from government budgets for the projects.

The move was meant to improve the budgets for the projects. K-water checked a number of key aspects of the projects to determine their safety and economic aspects, to decide their future management and make improvements.

The company also examines the real values of the projects by analyzing the supply costs of the materials and the construction technologies that were employed to see if they were economically effective.

The checks on designs and economic viability had the most effective results on highways being planned around Ansan City, Gyeonggi Province, with 8.7 billion won saved.

Some 7.4 billion won was saved from the Busan Echo Delta City Project, which is in the first of three stages. K-water saved a total of 957.3 billion won since the audits began in 2001.

A detail diagram of an information platform on global disaster prevention.