기술보고 : 물 시장의 현주소와 지하수 산업에 대한 고찰 = Technical Report : Current States of the Global Water Market and Considerations for the Groundwater Industry in South Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Since the establishment of the Groundwater Act in Korea in 1993, the national policy on groundwater has focused on the preservation and management of groundwater, which should be used only as a subsidiary water resource. However, population growth, increased water demand, climate change, and the need for uniform water distribution have brought changes to groundwater policy, and have led to the prioritization of development projects such as groundwater dams and river bank filtration. Population growth, changes to the water environment, and increased water risks have all played a role in triggering rapid growth within the water industry; the size of the investment in water resources will also continue to increase worldwide. Until now, private wells and bottled mineral water have led the groundwater industry in South Korea. However, a new area of the groundwater industry, which includes the health and medical sciences, employs groundwater properties derived from regional geology, and is growing. This requires the advancement of groundwater research and technical development connected with ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and medical science, and that the public development of groundwater and its various applications is expanded through locating groundwater in the core of the water industry cluster.