This article has an aim, centering around air and water pollution, to review the present situation and prospect of pollution in our country, the health effects of environmental pollution on human body, and the recent achievements in studying health effects.
The present situation of air pollution shows that the amount of S02 gas exceeds the permissible: level of the yearly average, 05ppm in Seoul, Busan and Ulsan. The pollution levels of heavy metals, such as Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury, and of Benzopyrene, a carcinogen, are also high in those areas. Such air pollution increases mainly in proportion to the consumption of the fossil fuels. In Seoul area, air pollution will considerably advanced by the year 2, 000, because the amount of fossil fuels burned per year will become 1, 720, 000 tons by then. So many factors intervening in the effect of environmental pollution on the human body, it is difficult to define exactly the relation between the pollutants, and diseases.
From the historical events of air pollution, there were several episodes of air pollution accidents, but the distinction between acute and chronic diseases could be hardly made. Nonetheless, it can be found that the incidence rates of bronchitis, emphysema, bronchiectasis and lung cancer drastically increase.
In case of water pollution, Biochemical Oxygen Demand, the major index of water pollution, shows that the pollution level exceeds 3.Oppm (the second class limitation of resources of, portable water) in, most water areas in Korea, and goes up beyond even 6.0 ppm (the third class limitation) in the Han River and the Man-Kyoung River. Because such pollution levels are in proportion to the amount of all waste waters including industrial waste water, house holding sewage, agricultural waste water, etc. constant increase in water pollution level can be predicted in that the outflow of industrial wastewater will be increased by 1986, 3.15 times as much as that of the base year, 1976, and the releasing of householding sewage will also tend to grow by 2.6 times. The health effect of water pollutants: such as toxic chemicals and heavy´ metals in the human body is inducing serious illness.
The recent study of health effects is in the various effects of environmental pollution on the human body more concretely, through biomonitoring, epidemiologic survey, screening system for environmental mutagens and indoor air pollution monitoring. Therefore, the above-mentioned recent trend of the study will also be described in this paper.
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