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.

This study is to evaluate the prior economic feasibility of the off-shore fisheries stock enhancement project. The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: first, offshore fisheries stock enhancement project shall be implemented by dividing them into 1st·2nd·3rd projects for efficient promotion. The 1st·2nd·3rd projects will be conducted in a total of 50 locations (the eastern sea, the western sea, the southern sea, and the jeju sea areas), and the project period per unit will be five years, which will cost 1 trillion won. Second, according to the results of the survey on public awareness, the most consumed marine species in Korea over the past year were analyzed in the order of mackerel, hairtail, squid, yellow corvina, blue crab, and cod. The dominant response to the reason for consuming marine products in Korea was healthy well-being food and safe food. In addition, 67.9% of them have hesitated to purchase offshore fish species over the past year due to high prices, indicating that they are burdened by high prices. On the other hand, 79% of the respondents said that the government’s policy was insufficient, according to a survey on whether the government's coastal marine resource creation policy was sufficient. Third, as a result of preliminary economic analysis of offshore fisheries stock enhancement project, the benefit-cost ratio is 4.01, net present price is 1,283.7 billion won, and internal rate of return is 91.7% per year, which means that the economic analysis ensures the feasibility of the projects. The results of this study provide useful information on securing or organizing budgets for offshore fisheries stock enhancement project by securing economic feasibility as a national infrastructure project that increases fishery income and public benefits such as consumption of marine products.