Grand Korean Waterway

The Grand Korean Waterway is a proposed 540-kilometer (336 mile) long canal connecting Seoul and Busan, two of South Korea's largest cities. The canal would run diagonal across the country connecting the Han River, which flows though Seoul into the Yellow Sea, to the Nakdong River, which flows through Busan into the Korea Strait. The proposed canal would be 540 kilometers in length and traverse difficult mountainous terrain.

The canal is a project of Lee Myung-bak, the current president of South Korea. It has met with some controversy and disapproval from the Korean populace. Lee has stated that his canal would lessen the load on the clogged motorways of the country as heavy goods are taken off of trucks and onto barges and rivercraft. He has also argued that it will revitalize the interior of the country with renewed tourism and investment.

Critics of Lee's plans argue that the canal would prove disastrous to the natural environment and potentially hazardous to the freshwater sources that the 50 million residents of the country depend on.

Lee proposes to fund the project almost exclusively through private funds and substantially from the sale of sand and gravel dredged from the rivers and streams involved in the project. This dredging will, he argues, make the rivers cleaner.

There would also be a smaller canal linking Seoul to neighboring Incheon. It is believed that this would assist economic partnerships between the two cities, lessen traffic congestion, stimulate tourism, and provide Seoul access to the Sea of Japan (East Sea). The current mouth of the Han River is in an area between North Korea and South Korea which limits economic activity in the region for security reasons.

References

• "South Korean plans for a grand canal: Savior or folly?", International Herald Tribune, February 20, 2008, (Retrieved February 21, 2008)