The Relationship between Climatic and Oceanographic Factors and LaverAquaculture Production
While some steps in laver aquaculture production can be controlled artificially to a certain extent, the culturing process is largely affected by natural factors, such as the characteristics of seawater, climatic and oceanographic conditions, etc. This study aims to find a direct relationship between climatic and oceanographic factors (water temperature, air temperature, salinity, rainfall, sunshine duration and wind speed) and laver aquaculture production in Wando region, the biggest aquaculture production area of laver, located in the southwest coast of Korea using a multiple regression analysis. Despite the small sample size of a dependent variable, the goodness of model fit appeared acceptable. In addition, the R-squared value was 0.951, which means that the variables were very explanatory. Model results indicated that duration of sunshine, temperature, and rainfall during the farming period from the end of September to the end of April would be important factors affecting significantly to the laver aquaculture production.