The study aims to identify the current status of aquaculture information in Korea and suggests policy directions for its integrated management. Firstly, the study focuses on the identification of the current status of aquaculture information by reviewing how aquaculture information is managed. Secondly, this study identifies problems such as lacks in necessary aquaculture information, inefficiency caused by dispersion and overlapping of information, absence of integrated management system and insufficient sharing of information. After identifying the current status of aquaculture information and its problems, the study suggests three basic directions to systematically integrate and manage the information such as establishment of infrastructure for promoting the integrated management of aquaculture information, generation and systematic management of useful aquaculture information and enhancement of user convenience. Finally, the study suggests detailed strategies such as establishment of a foundation to facilitate integrated management of aquaculture information, organization of organic network, sharing of more information, creation of necessary information through demand survey, creation of systematic management system, provision of a customized total service, and increase in education and PR activities on information use.

Mass mortalities of cultivated organisms have occurred frequently in Korean coastal waters causing enormous losses to cultivating industry. The preventive measures require continuous observation of farm environment and real-time provision of data. However, line hanging aquaculture farm are generally located far from monitoring buoys and has limitations on installation of heavy equipments. Substituting battery pack for solar panels and miniaturizing size of buoy, newly developed system can be attached to long line hanging aquaculture farm. This system could deliver measured data to users in real-time and contribute to damage mitigation and prevention from mass mortalities as well as finding their causes. The system was installed off Gijang and Yeongdeck in Korea, measuring and transmitting seawater temperature at the sea surface every 30 minutes. Short term variation of seawater temperature, less than one day, in Gijang from June to July 2009 corresponded tidal period of about 12 hours and long term variation seemed to be caused by cold water southeast coast of Korea, particularly northeast of Gijang. Seawater temperature differences between Gijang station and the other station that is about 500 m away from Gijang station were 1 ℃ on average. This fact indicates that it is need to be pay attention to use substitute data even if it is close to the station. Daily range of seawater temperature, one of crucial information to aquaculture, can be obtained from this system because temperature were measured every 30 minutes. Averages of daily range of temperature off Gijang and Yeongdeok during each observation periods were about 2.9 ℃ and 4.7 ℃ respectively. Dominant period of seawater temperature variation off Yeongdeok was one day with the lowest peak at 5 a.m. and the highest one at 5 p.m. generally, resulting from solar radiation.