Marine debris has become a serious global environmental and economic concern with abandoned fishing gear identified as one of the primary drivers threatening marine ecosystems. In South Korea, a substantial amount of fishing gear continues to enter the ocean annually; however, the current land-based disposal system faces inherent limitations including high transportation costs and low recycling efficiency. To address these challenges, this study evaluated the feasibility of repurposing decommissioned fishing vessels as marine pre-treatment platforms to collect and process abandoned fishing gear at sea. Results indicate that marine pre-treatment vessels can reduce the volume of discarded fishing gear, thereby cutting transport and disposal costs. Refitting decommissioned vessels is more cost-effective than new construction and increases their recycling value. This research provides a policy and technical foundation to improve the marine debris management system by assessing the economic and environmental benefits of deploying marine pre-treatment vessels.

Purse seine fishing is a fishing method that involves surrounding a school of fish with a net and then closing the net at the bottom to prevent the fish from escaping. The success rate of purse seine operations is universally determined by the trajectory of the net shooting whether in large-scale, offshore, or coastal purse seine operations. The decision on where to shoot the nets and the movement of the surrounding vessels depends on the captain's or fishing master's judgment that is based on experience. Real purse seine operations must consider wind direction, currents, wave height, and the distribution of prey and other marine life making it challenging to cast a perfect circle or oval-shaped net, often relying on various shooting trajectories based on experience. Current purse seine operations involve both the main vessel and auxiliary boats, and the shooting trajectory is determined by various environmental factors like wind direction and sea conditions making it challenging to achieve a perfect cast. This comprehensive overview of the purse seine fishing industry and its practices in South Korea provides insights into the operational techniques and challenges faced by fishermen as well as the significant role of research in enhancing fishing operations and sustainability.

The purpose of this study is to select a fishing gear deposit marking method for the gear deposit system implemented for gillnet. The fishing gear deposit system was implemented in Korea for the first time in the world in January 2024 for fish trap, and it is scheduled to be expanded to gillnets and buoys by 2026. In this study, an AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) survey was conducted with 34 experts. The AHP analysis method was used to calculate the weights of each criterion that influence the selection of the deposit marking method, in order to determine the optimal marking method that considers both qualitative and quantitative criteria. Experts prioritized the label-type marking and preferred the weight-based deposit unit for its ease of application and ability to measure multiple gear widths at once. This study quantitatively reflects the opinions of experts on the selection of the gillnet deposit system. Future research should examine the impact of marking method on fishing performance, durability, and institutional improvements.

This study sought various ways to prevent the occurrence of waste fishing gear and promote the recovery. It is expected that the problem of waste fishing gear can be effectively solved through measures such as strengthening education and publicity, technical measures, establishment of recovery infrastructure, and provision of incentives. In particular, introduction of the waste fishing gear recovery promotion point system gives fishermen practical motivation. It can be an important means of inducing leisure and sustainable fishing activities. In addition, by inducing the participation of private companies, it is expected to promote the recovery and recycling of waste fishing ports and contribute to the protection of the marine environment and fisheries resources. The government or local government should actively review the measures suggested in this study and prepare related laws and policies. In addition, it is necessary to establish a system to induce the participation of various stakeholders and support sustainable fishing activities through public-private cooperation. Through this, we will be able to achieve carbon neutrality goals in the fishing sector in response to climate change. This study suggests an early stage plan, and in future research, it is necessary to evaluate and find and improve practical effects through pilot projects. Moreover, it is necessary to study the management of closed fishing gear and carbon neutrality practice measures at the global level by seeking international cooperation measures. Consequently, more effective and sustainable marine environment and fishery resource protection measures can be prepared.

This study aims to estimate the trawl net width based on the design drawing and towing condition of sampling trawl used in past surveys to improve the accuracy of estimation for fishery resources. To this end, the trawl gear was modeled as a flexible structure and numerically analyzed, and the analysis results were subjected to multiple regression analysis. As a result, a model was derived to calculate the net width by the towing conditions. When the towing conditions from past surveys were input into this model, it was confirmed that the net width increased in a natural logarithmic manner with the increase in the warp length and that decreased linearly as the water depth increased at the same warp length. For verification of the model, the theoretical formula of other study and this model were compared. As a result, despite the values of the two were slightly different, the tendency of changing net width by increasing warp length was consistent each other. Therefore, it is thought that the derived model can obtain the net width according to various towing conditions and can contribute to improving the accuracy of fishery resources estimation.

In response to the global interest and efforts towards reducing plastic use and promoting resource recycling, there is a growing need to establish methods for recycling discarded fishing gear. In Korea, various technologies are being developed to recycle discarded fishing gear, but significant technical and policy challenges still remain. In particular, biodegradable gill nets require a pre-treatment process to separate biodegradable materials from other substances and to remove salt before recycling. Therefore, this study aims to develop a pre-treatment device for recycling biodegradable gill nets and to evaluate the feasibility of recycling them.

Most fishing nets used in fish cage aquaculture are made of synthetic fibers such as polyamide (PA) and polyethylene (PE). Therefore, it is challenging to maintain the internal volume of the fish cage due to biofouling, which can increase the load on the cage or reduce dissolved oxygen levels by impeding smooth current flow. To address this issue, research has been conducted to replace conventional synthetic fiber cage nets with brass nets, demonstrating certain benefits such as improved productivity and ease of fish cage management. However, given the need for a more thorough examination of brass fishing net weaving technology and performance, this study assessed the optimal weaving method for brass fishing nets to be used in fish cages. Additionally, it provided essential data for the practical application of brass fishing nets by evaluating their weight, tensile strength, elongation, fatigue resistance, and wear resistance. The study concluded that weaving brass fishing nets using the chain link method ensures durability, ease of installation, and compact storage in a scroll-like form. Moreover, due to their superior fatigue and wear resistance properties, brass nets can offer increased utility if appropriate net diameter and length are selected to compensate for their higher weight per unit area and relatively higher cost compared to existing fiber fishing nets.

In this study, the risk factors of coastal purse seine fisherman were analyzed through a survey of fishery workers of coastal purse seine fishery and the accident compensation insurance data of the fisheries workers of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives (NFFC). The classified fishing operation accident data was analyzed through 4M (Man, Machine, Media, Management) model of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the accident prevention measures were presented using Harvey's 3E (Engineering, Education, Enforcement) model. The rate of accidents on coastal purse seinens each year was 75.8‰, 36.7‰ and 74.8‰ from 2015 to 2017. The accident frequency resulting from slipping was the highest, and the risk of a contact with gear was low. When comparing each insurance data, the average value of the contact with gear accident was the highest. This research result is expected to be important data in identifying and preventing safety hazards of coastal purse seiner fisherman in the future.

Recently, as the global problem of marine debris and marine plastics is getting serious, various ways to solve them have been proposed, and the use of the biodegradable fishing gear is proposed as an alternative. Currently, 13 types of biodegradable fishing gears are available, but their penetration rate is only 8.7%. However, the need for the use of the biodegradable fishing gear is growing as awareness of protecting marine ecosystems is growing. Therefore, in this study, the economic effects of the expansion of biodegradable fishing gear distribution in Korea's coastal areas were analyzed through the conservation of marine ecosystems, augmentation of fisheries resources, and augmentation of fishing efficiency. According to the analysis, the economic effects of 52,795 million won, 105,590 million won, and 158,385 million won was generated as the distribution of biodegradable fishing gear were expanded to 10%, 20% and 30% across all gill net and trap.

The concern on the greenhouse gas emissions is increasing globally. Especially, the greenhouse gas emission from fisheries is an important issue from the Paris Climate Change Accord in 2015. Furthermore, the Korean government has a plan to reduce the GHG emissions as 4.8% compared to the BAU in fisheries until 2020. However, the investigation on the GHG emissions from Korean fisheries rarely carried out consistently. Therefore, the quantitative analysis of GHG emissions from Korean fishery industry is necessary as a first step to find a relevant way to reduce GHG emissions from fisheries. The purpose of this research is to investigate which degree of GHG emitted from the major offshore fisheries such as offshore gillnet fishery, offshore longline fishery, offshore jigging fishery and anchovy drag net fishery. Here, we calculated the GHG emissions from the fisheries using the Life Cycle Assessment method. The system boundary and input parameters for each process level are defined for the LCA analysis. The fuel use coefficients of the fisheries are also calculated according to the fuel type. The GHG emissions from sea activities by the fisheries will be dealt with. Furthermore, the GHG emissions for the unit weight of fishes are calculated with consideration to the different consuming areas as well. The results will be helpful to understand the circumstances of GHG emissions from Korean fisheries