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Title |
Hydrobiological Responses and Ecological Vulnerability of Mountain Headwater Streams under Climate Change: Benthic Macroinvertebrate Assemblages and Indicator Species in Bangtaecheon
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Authors |
정찬영(Chanyoung Jeong) ; 송재하(Jeaha Song) ; 이수빈(Soobeen Lee) ; 최형식(Hyeongsik Choi) ; 김아름(Areum Kim) ; 추연수(Yeounsu Chu) ; 공동수(Dongsoo Kong) |
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DOI |
https://doi.org/10.15681/KSWE.2026.42.3.207 |
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Keywords |
Climate change; Freshwater; Korean Thermality Index; Macroinvertebrates; Mountain streams; Sustainable water management |
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Abstract |
This study evaluates climate change vulnerability in Bangtaecheon, South Korea, by integrating 13 years of September meteorological data with field measurements of water temperature and quality, as well as quantitative benthic macroinvertebrate surveys conducted in September 2012 and twice in September 2025 at six sites along an altitudinal gradient. September air temperature and precipitation trends were analyzed using the Mann?Kendall test with Sen's slope, while community-environment relationships were assessed through redundancy analysis (RDA) incorporating water temperature, electrical conductivity (EC), dissolved oxygen, and pH. Over the last decade, September air temperature and rainfall have increased significantly, whereas mean September stream temperature has not shown a significant monotonic trend. However, a short-term warming event in early September 2025 coincided with notable community reorganization: climate-sensitive taxa declined in middle and downstream reaches, while tolerant groups increased. KTI-based indicator taxa and EPT richness became increasingly restricted to upstream cold-water reaches with lower temperatures and EC, indicating an upslope contraction of suitable habitat. The RDA revealed that temperature, EC, dissolved oxygen, and pH accounted for 31.5% of community variation, highlighting distinct spatial and temporal gradients along the stream continuum. These findings support a zone-based management approach that prioritizes the protection of upstream cold-water refugia, strengthens early-warning monitoring in mid-reaches, and implements riparian buffering and sediment control actions in downstream transition reaches to sustain mountain headwaters amid increasing climate extremes.
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