Climate change has led to a significant increase in jellyfish populations globally, causing various problems. For power plants that use nearby seawater for cooling, the intrusion of jellyfish into intake systems can block the flow, leading to reduced output or even shutdowns. This issue is compounded by other small marine organisms like shrimp and salps, making it urgent to develop solutions to prevent their intrusion. This study addressed the problem using the BioSonics DT-X 120 kHz scientific fish finder to conduct preliminary tank experiments. We also deployed underwater acoustic and camera buoys around the intake of nuclear power plant, utilizing a bidirectional communication system between sea and land to collect data. Data collection took place from July 31, 2023 to August 1, 2023. While harmful organisms such as jellyfish and salps were not detected, we successfully gathered acoustic data on small fish measuring backscattering strength (SV). Analysis showed that fish schools were more prominent in the evening than during the day. The highest fish distribution was observed at 3:30 AM on July 31 with an SV of -44.8 dB while the lowest was at 12:30 PM on the same day with an SV of –63.4 dB. Additionally, a solar-powered system was used to enable real-time data acquisition from sea buoys with smooth communication between the land server and the offshore buoy located 1.8 km away. This research developed an acoustic-based monitoring system for detecting harmful organisms around the intake and provided foundational data for preventing marine organism intrusion and planning effective measures.

In this study, the seasonal distribution was surveyed using acoustic in the coastal waters around nuclear power plants. Acoustic surveys were conducted in June, September, December 2022, and March 2023 in the coastal waters of Uljin-gun. According to the results of this study, zooplankton were distributed at the depths from 0 m to 50 m in the waters around nuclear power plants. Zooplankton appeared in summer (June), autumn (September), and spring (March). In the survey area, fish were distributed at the depths from 25 m to 190 m, appearing in the summer (June), autumn (September), winter (December) and spring (March). The SV of zooplankton appearing in the survey area ranged from -98.0 dB to -78.0 dB, and it exhibited a one-class in the frequency distribution of SV. The SV of fish appearing in the survey area ranged from -36.0 dB to -35.0 dB and -98.0 dB to -53.0 dB, and it exhibited two-class in the frequency distribution of SV.

This study developed and evaluated a load cell-based automatic weighing system for the automated harvesting of laver (Porphyra tenera) in seaweed aquaculture. The current manual harvesting process was compared with the load cell-based automated system, and quantitative measurements of time, distance, and weight were conducted. The results demonstrated that the load cell-based system reduced the unloading time and increased the throughput compared to the manual method. In addition, statistical analysis confirmed that there was no significant difference from the mean in the weight measurement obtained using the load cell-based system. Based on these findings, the load cell-based automatic weighing system holds potential for efficient production and transactions in laver cultivation, contributing to cost reduction and improving the quality of life for aquaculture workers.

Laver aquaculture, which occupies a large proportion in the aquaculture industry in Korea, is still highly dependent on human labor. Therefore, it is necessary to study the development of an automatic system to improve the working environment and increase the efficiency of aquaculture production systems. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the economic feasibility of an improved system in a study for the loading-unloading and automatic weighing systems in laver aquaculture industry. Economic analysis of the developed unloading and automatic weighing system were implemented under various conditions to calculate more accurate benefits and costs. As a result of this study, the economic feasibility was found to be very high in the three models: net present value (NPV), benefit-cost ratio (B/C), internal rate of return (IRR). Moreover, the results of sensitivity analysis showed that the economical efficiency of the automatic loading, unloading, and weighing system in laver aquaculture was very high.

A telesounder is a device that can monitor the appearance of fish in the sea on land and store fish detection data. This study was conducted to monitor the appearance of fish resources in coastal or near seas by using LTE communication for data transmission of the telesounder. The purpose of this study was to develop a prototype telesounder that can monitor the appearance of fish groups in the waters about 50 km away from the coast and store fish detection data. In this study, the prototype telesounder including a fish finder, communication device and battery for stable operation at sea was developed. The stability of telesounder buoy, data transmission/reception and expected use time were investigated. The expected use time of the telesounder using LTE communication with a lithium battery (12 V, 120 Ah) was about 274 hours under the conditions of 10 minutes off and 10 minutes on, about 520 hours under the conditions of 30 minutes off and 10 minutes on, and about 142 hours under continuous conditions. As a result of the sea test, it was found that the telesounder can be used in the sea area moved about 34 km from the land and the telesounder buoy was evaluated to have secured basic stability (buoyancy balance, waterproof, antenna strength, etc.) for operation in a marine environment.

As a method to understand the ecological habits around the artificial reef, various reports such as fishing gear survey, diving, sound survey, underwater CCTV and camera, etc. are reported. Among them, the sound survey method is carried out by installing an acoustic system on the ship and can be investigated regardless of the marine environment such as time constraints and turbidity. Such method, however, takes a lot of manpower and time as the ship travels at a constant speed. Investigations around artificial reefs are being conducted in an artificial way, and a lot of time and labor are consumed as such. Maritime buoys have been operated for various purposes such as route signs, weather observation, marine environment monitoring and defense monitoring for navigation safety in the past, but studies on monitoring systems for ecological habits and distribution of fish using marine buoys are remarkably insufficient. Therefore, this study aims to develop a system that allows users to directly monitor fish group detector data by estimating the distribution of fish groups around artificial reefs and using wireless communication at sea. In order to confirm the suitability of the maritime buoy used in this study, it was operated to compare data using LTE-equipped buoys capable of wireless communication and a data logger-type system buoy. Data transmission of buoys capable of LTE communication was carried out in a 10-minute ON, 10-minute OFF method due to the limitation of the power supply capacity, and data of the data logger-type buoy received full data. We compared and analyzed the data received from the two fish detectors. It is expected that real-time monitoring of the wireless buoy detection device using LTE will be possible through future research.

In September and October 2020, combined acoustic and trawl surveys were conducted in the northwestern sea of Jeju Island. In the survey area, a region, so called Jeju region, was designated to esimate the biomass of chub mackerel and jack mackerel using a trawl survey method and frequency difference method. In the September survey, the weight ratios of jack mackerel and chub mackerel to the total catch were 24.6% and 2.8%, respectively, and in the October survey, those ratios were 24.9% and 20.7%, which were used to calculate their biomass (trawl survey). Using the frequency difference range (–8 to –3dB) corresponding to two species in 120 and 200 kHz, their biomass was estimated (frequency difference method). As a result, the biomass of two species from the trawl method was 3252.3 tons in September and 5777.0 tons in October. The estimated biomass by the frequency difference method was 4926.6 tons in September and 7521.5 tons in October. It was the first trial to estimate the biomass of two species using the trawl and frequency differencing methods in South Korea although there were some differences between two methods. In addition, horizontal distributions of acoustic backscattering strength over the entire survey area were mapped.

Using environmental DNA (eDNA) in the fisheries and oceanography fields, research on the diversity of biological species, the presence or absence of specific species and quantitative evaluation of species has considerably been performed. Up to date, no study on eDNA has been tried in the area of fisheries acoustics in Korea. In this study, the biomass of a dominant species in the northwestern waters of Jeju Island was examined using 1) the catch ratio of the species from trawl survey results and 2) the ranking ratio of the species from the eDNA results. The dominant species was Zoarces gillii, and its trawl catch ratio was 68.2% and its eDNA ratio was 81.3%. The Zoarces gillii biomass from the two methods was 7199.4 tons (trawl) and 8584.6 tons (eDNA), respectively. The mean and standard deviation of the acoustic backscattering strength values (120 kHz) from the entire survey area were 135.5 and 157.7 m 2 /nm 2 , respectively. The strongest echo signal occurred at latitude 34° and longitude 126°15’ (northwest of Jeju Island). High echo signals were observed in a specific oceanographic feature (salinity range of 32-33 psu and the water temperature range of 19-20℃). This study was a pilot study on evaluating quantitatively aquatic resources by applying the eDNA technique into acoustic-trawl survey method. Points to be considered for high-quality quantitative estimation using the eDNA to fisheries acosutics were discussed.

One of the problems with abalone farms is that they need to be checked frequently after feeding them or visited once or twice a day and that the amount of food intake constantly fluctuates due to changes in water temperature around the farm and typhoons. In addition, the condition of abalone is not constant as it is divided into places that eat well and do not eat well according to its location. In order to solve this problem, there is a method of measuring the amount of food intake by using a load cell that can measure even the smallest weight in an abalone farm. Through this study, we implemented a system capable of measuring the amount of abalone feed required for systematic management of abalone farms and real-time monitoring using mobile and client PCs.