The primary purpose of this study was to quantitatively examine whether there was a difference in the settling velocities of cohesive sediments in the Saemankeum artificial lake before and after the closure of the Saemankeum seadike. Through in situ sediment sampling and laboratory experiments, the settling velocities were estimated as a function of the suspension concentration and their physico-chemical properties, such as grain size distribution, the percentage of organic contents, mineralogical composition, etc. were also examined. In this study, their inter-relation with settling velocities were also analyzed qualitatively. The result of the settling tests for Saemankeum sediments showed that there was a big difference in the settling velocities before and after the closure of the Saemankeum seadike. Its settling velocities in a flocculated settling region became remarkably larger after the closure compared to those before the closure, while they were similar but relatively smaller in a hindered settling region. This was found to be mainly due to the difference in their grain size.