Grand Korean Waterway

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The Grand Korean Waterway, officially known as the Pan Korea Grand Waterway (한반도 대운하), is a proposed 540-kilometer (336 mile) long canal connecting Seoul and Busan, two of South Korea's largest cities. The canal would run diagonally 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 huge controversy and disapproval. Lee stated that his canal will lessen the load on the clogged motorways of the country as heavy goods are taken off of trucks and put onto barges and rivercraft. He also argued that it will revitalize the interior of the country with renewed tourism and investment.

Many Koreans are anxious about Lee's plans. They argue that the canal will prove disastrous to the natural environment and potentially hazardous to the freshwater sources that nearly 50 million residents of the country depend on. In addition, many researchers and interested distribution industries prospect the canal may be economically unprofitable because land transportation may be more cost-effective.

Supporters of this plan insist that the length of the construction would only be 40 km linking the Han River with the Nakdong River. The Canal will require sufficient width, depth and height of bridge decks to allow barges passage. Major portions of the Han and Nakdong are far narrower and shallower than is required, most of the bridges on these rivers are unsuitable as their clearance is too low. The scale of construction must be an enormous, a number of bridges must be rebuilt and both rivers will require extensive dredging along the 540 kilometer route.

Lee proposes to fund the project almost exclusively through private funds and subst through 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.

The proposal includes a smaller canal, planned to link Seoul and neighboring Incheon. It is believed that this will assist economic partnerships between the two cities, lessen traffic congestion, stimulate tourism, and provide Seoul access to the Yellow Sea (West Sea). The 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.