Prediction of Fish Quantity Under the Sea? Solved by University Students

Pukyong University Student Wins Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries Contest Grand Prize with Fish Stock Prediction Idea
Stores and Integrates Fishing Vessel-Specific Fish School Detector Data Without Discarding

Pukyong National University students who won the grand prize in the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries contest with their idea to predict the number of fish in the sea.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] How many fish are there under the sea? Just gather the fish movement information from the fish finders attached to each fishing vessel and create a database!

Students from Pukyong National University came up with an ingenious method to predict the amount of fish underwater and won the grand prize at the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries’ 7th Marine Fisheries Information Service and Business Idea Contest.

The protagonists are the See-Sea team, consisting of third-year students from the Department of Marine Fisheries Management at the university: Lee Ga-hyun (22), Park Je-hyun (22), and Kim Min-gyu (22). Their winning entry is the “Easy Fisheries Resource Prediction and Management System Using SONAR Sea Maps.”

This idea was inspired by the fact that about 15,000 coastal fishing vessels on average detect fish schools under the sea using fish finders (SONAR) daily but do not separately store that information.

Each fishing boat was independently using fuel to chase fish schools, a so-called “separately served soup” situation. So, what if the fishing vessels were networked together?

The students gathered knowledge and devised a plan: ▷ distribute fish finders equipped with information transmitters and receivers to fishing vessels ▷ integrate and collect fish school information by water area ▷ combine marine information of the area with fish school data for analysis ▷ easily determine which fish species appear and in what quantity according to water temperature, wind speed, and wave height.

This idea was evaluated as capable of dramatically improving the cost and accuracy of measuring fishery resources.

Student Lee Ga-hyun said, “Every year, the Total Allowable Catch (TAC), which is the total amount fishermen can catch, is calculated mainly relying on fishermen’s catch reports, which has been criticized for its lack of accuracy.”

“I hope the proposal we submitted together with my friends will help in managing fishery resources and support fishermen’s sustainable fishing,” she added.

Among the 10 winning teams in this contest, Pukyong National University students took three spots. Besides the grand prize-winning See-Sea team, two other teams received excellence awards.

Among them, the “Saengseonhoejangnim Team” won an excellence award with their idea called “seacretary,” which uses artificial intelligence to analyze photos of seafood sent by users and provides comprehensive information about the seafood, including species, habitat environment, and nutritional information.

The “Kkoma Fish Doctor Team” received an excellence award for their idea “Smart Fish Care,” which links and analyzes aquaculture farm locations, fish species, farm environments, and water temperatures to provide integrated aquaculture information such as optimal feed supply, disease management, harvest timing, and business analysis to farm managers.

The ideas from the winning entries of this contest will be recommended to startup support programs of the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and its 39 affiliated and subordinate organizations and will be utilized in related policy making.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.