We examined the horizontal distribution of salinity and the concentrations of DIN and DIP after heavy rainfall events in coastal areas of South Korea from Yeoja Bay to Narodo and from Gwangyang Bay to Geomodo to determine whether fresh water actually flows into areas of Cochlodinium polykrikoides red tides and to observe its effect on the growth of this organism after heavy rainfall. Following heavy rainfall (155 mm) in the Yeosu and Suncheon regions, the average salinity was 21 and 29 psu at Yeoja Bay and in the coastal waters of Narodo, respectively. After 126 mm of rainfall, the values were 19 and 25 psu in the coastal waters of Yeosu and Geomodo, respectively. This may have been caused by an influx of fresh water, after the rainfall event, into the open sea coastal areas around Narodo and Geomodo from the Dong and Seomjin Rivers, which are about 3540 km away. After the rainfall, the concentrations of NH4-N, NO2-N, and PO4-P were slightly increased; however, the concentration of NO3-N was greatly increased and diffused throughout the coastal areas of Narodo and Geomodo, which frequently experience C. polykrikoides blooms. The influence of NH4-N, NO2-N, and PO4-P on the occurrence of C. polykrikoidesred tides in coastal areas around Narodo and Geomodo after heavy rainfall does not appear to be great. Instead, the occurrence C. polykrikoides red tides in the coastal areas of Narodo and Geomodo seems to be facilitated by NO3-N.

Oil spill caused severe effects on the marine fauna and flora due to direct contact of organisms with the oil and even in regions not directly affected by the spill. This study was conducted to understand the effects of the oil spill accidents and the use of dispersant on the red tide of Cochlodinium polykrikoides. Crude oil produced in Kuwait, bunker-C, kerosene and diesel oil, and a chemical dispersant produced in Korea, were added with a series of 10 ppb to 100 ppm in the f/2-Si medium at 20℃ under a photon flux from cool white fluorescent tubes of 100 mol m-2 s-1 in a 14: 10 h L:D cycle for the culture of C. polykrikoides. In low concentrations of ≤1 ppm of examined oils no impact on the growth of C. polykrikoides was recorded, while in high concentration of ≥10 ppm, cell density was significantly decreased with the range of 10 to 80% in comparison with the control. The growth of C. polykrikoides after the addition of the dispersant and the mixtures combined with oils and a dispersant of ≥10 ppm appeared to decrease, whereas the growth of C. polykrikoides exposed to ≤100 ppb showed little serious impact. However, almost all the C. polykrikoides cells were died regardless of a dispersant and combined mixtures within a few days after the addition of high concentrations.

In this study, the PHYTO-PAM-fluorometric method was used to evaluate the ETRmax in terms of sensitivity to DIN/DIP against 14 microalgae: Prorocentrum micans, Heterocapsa triquetra, Gymnodinium impudicum, Gymnodinium catenatum, Amphidinium caterae, Chlorella vulgaris, Chroococcus minutus, Microcystis aeruginosa, Chlorella ellipsoidea, Nannochloris oculata, Oocystis lacustris, Chroomonas salina, Gloeocystis gigas, and Prymnessium parvum. We found that P. micans, H. triquetra, and A. caterae exposed to the maximum level of DIN/DIP were significantly smaller in the ETRmax than that of the minimum and moderate mixture. Unlikely the ETRmax, the initial slope alpha was not significantly different at the level of 60 DIN/DIP. In G. catenatum, the moderate levels of 15 and 20 in DIN/DIP were found to be significantly different from the ETRmax at Ch1-Ch4. Gymnodinium impudicum had a higher value than that of the ETRmax than that of dinoflagellates used in this study, ranging from 306.1 (Ch4, DIN/DIP: 10) to 520.1 (Ch4, DIN/DIP: 30). The ETRmax value obtained from other microalgae was similar to G. impudicum at any of the ratios of DIN/DIP and channels. Consequently, the influence of offshore water current assures us of the suppression of photosynthesis and electron transport rate in dinoflagellates. Gymnodinium impudicum has not been researched in the area of red tides in Korea, but it will be enough to creat the massive algal blooms in the future because of higher potential photochemical availability.

Variations in phytoplankton concentrations result from changes of the ocean color caused by phytoplankton pigments. Thus, ocean spectral reflectance for low chlorophyll waters are blue and high chlorophyll waters tend to have green reflectance. In the Korea region, clear waters and the open sea in the Kuroshio regions of the East China Sea have low chlorophyll. As one moves even closer to the northwestern part of the East China Sea, the situation becomes much more optically complicated, with contributions not only from higher concentrations of phytoplankton, but also from sediments and dissolved materials from terrestrial and sea bottom sources. The color often approaches yellow-brown in the turbidity waters (Case Ⅱ waters). To verify satellite ocean color retrievals, or to develop new algorithms for complex case Ⅱ regions requires ship-based studies. In this study, we compared the chlorophyll retrievals from NASA's SeaWiFS sensor with chlorophyll values determined with standard fluorometric methods during two cruises on Korean NFRDI ships. For the SeaWiFS data, we used the standard NASA SeaWiFS algorithm to estimate the chlorophyll a distribution around the Korean waters using Orbview/ SeaWiFS satellite data acquired by our HPRT station at NFRDI. We studied to find out the relationship between the measured chlorophyll a from the ship and the estimated chlorophyll a from the SeaWiFS satellite data around the northern part of the East China Sea, in February, and May, 2000. The relationship between the measured chlorophyll_a and the SeaWiFS chlorophyll_a shows following the equations (1) in the northern part of the East China Sea. Chlorophyll_a=0.121Ln(X) + 0.504, R2 = 0.73 (1) We also determined total suspended sediment mass (SS) and compared it with SeaWiFS spectral band ratio. A suspended solid algorithm was composed of in-situ data and the ratio (LWN(490 nm)/LWN(555 nm)) of the SeaWiFS wavelength bands. The relationship between the measured suspended solid and the SeaWiFS band ratio shows following the equation (2) in the northern part of the East China Sea. SS=-0.703 Ln(X) + 2.237, R2 = 0.62 (2) In the near future, NFRDI will develop algorithms for quantifying the ocean color properties around the Korean waters, with the data from regular ocean observations using its own research vessels and from three satellites, KOMPSAT/OSMI, Terra/MODIS and Orbview/SeaWiFS.