• Journal of the Korean Society of Fisheries and Ocean Technology
• /
• v.53 no.4
• /
• pp.437-445
• /
• 2017

Distribution and composition of the seabed litters in the exclusive economic zone of the West Sea of South Korea including 18 sea-blocks were investigated using a bottom trawl gear of the R/V Tamgtu 20 (National Institute of Fisheries Science) from 24th April 2011 to 4th May 2012. Each trawl shot was conducted for an hour in each sea-block and the total trawl shots was 18. As a result, 325.6 kg of seabed litter in total has been collected. The quantity of the seabed litter was highest at No. 202 of the sea-block, close to the Heuksan-Do. The highest occupied sea material was plastic (83.1% of entire seabed litters), the second highest material was metal combined with plastic (10.6%), and glass (2.9%), metals (2.3%), vinyl (0.6%), cloth (0.4%) and wood (0.2%) in order. The origin of seabed litters was from fishing gear (89.0% of all seabed litters). Therefore, it could be assumed that most seabed litters were derived from the fishing activity for example fishing nets and ropes.