Jinhae Bay is a semi-enclosed embayment characterized by weak flows and high productivity. The bay serves as an important spawning and nursery ground for coastal fishery resources and is thereby an integral asset to Korea’s coastal fisheries. Howeve...
Jinhae Bay is a semi-enclosed embayment characterized by weak flows and high productivity. The bay serves as an important spawning and nursery ground for coastal fishery resources and is thereby an integral asset to Korea’s coastal fisheries. However, continuous degradation of the bay’s water quality by domestic sewage, industrial wastewater, and aquaculture pollution, combined with recent increases in seawater temperature and precipitation associated with climate change, has led to greater variability in fishery resources. This study integrated marine environmental data, fish sampling, and acoustic surveys to examine interannual changes in the distribution and densities of dominant fish species in Jinhae Bay. Monthly temperature and salinity distributions were measured using Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) profiling, and set-net catch data were analyzed to identify monthly dominant species and species composition. Acoustic data at 38 and 120 kHz were also collected; using this data, fish schools were detected using a school detection module, and species were classified through the dB-difference method. High water temperatures and low-salinity conditions persisted in Jinhae Bay during the summer of 2024, whereas in 2025, water temperatures were lower and the salinity variability was reduced. Fish sampling survey results revealed a simple species composition in 2024, whereas in 2025, the species composition expanded. In the acoustic survey, schools were most abundantly detected in June 2024 and September 2025. The fish school density levels in 2024 were highest in June, at 2.444 g/m², whereas in 2025 it was highest in September, at 1.890 g/m². The results of this study can be used to understand the distribution and variability of coastal fishery resources and represent an important justification for future coastal fishery monitoring.