■ Background and necessity

● Research background

- The country has invested a lot of resources in ocean research for various purposes, including scientific exploration, environmental conservation, resource management, economic opportunity, national security, and disaster response.

- The area to be surveyed is large, the survey environment is dangerous, the survey period is long, and the survey items are limited, which are limitations of existing marine research.

● Research needs

- With the rapid development of AI and satellite technology, these difficulties in ocean research can now be solved using satellite information.

∙ Satellite information has great strengths in ocean research in terms of wide area, accessibility, speed, and sustainability.

- Accordingly, space powers are actively adopting satellite information for ocean research.

- Accordingly, there is a need to identify domestic and international research trends in the maritime sector using satellite information and find implications.

● Purpose of the study

- We aim to identify and share domestic and international research activities in the maritime sector using satellite information.

- Through paper analysis, we aim to identify domestic and international research trends and analyze the level of research to find policy implications.

■ Research and activity trends

● Overview of marine sector research using satellite information

- (Main research areas) Oceanography, marine ecosystem, climate change, marine pollution, coastal change monitoring, etc.

- (Main payload) Optical and multispectral sensors, SAR, radiometer, altimeter, scatterometer, sounder, etc.

- (Problems and limitations) Data quality and resolution, cloud cover and atmospheric conditions, limited time range, cost and accessibility, data processing and analysis, integration with field data, regulatory and legal issues, etc.

● Oceanographic research trends

- Deep learning-based information mining from marine remote sensing images

- Estimation of sea surface salinity using L-band radiometer

- Remote sensing of Antarctic ice movement

● Marine ecosystem monitoring research trends

- Seaweed research using remote sensing

- Remote sensing of marine ecosystem and fisheries

- Mangrove ecosystem mapping and monitoring

● Climate change and environmental monitoring research trends

- Marine Biological Carbon Pump (OBCP) detection

- Detection of anthropogenic climate change fingerprints in marine phytoplankton

- EUMETSAT Polar System

● Marine pollution monitoring research trends

- Advances in remote sensing, machine learning, and deep learning for marine oil spill detection

- Marine pollution seen from space

- Marine oil spill management technology

● Coastal change monitoring research trends

- Earth observations for monitoring coastal hazards and drivers

- Satellite-based offshore bathymetry

- Remote sensing of solar-induced chlorophyll-a fluorescence in coastal waters

● Coastal resource management trends

- (Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology) Development of satellite-linked border water vessel monitoring and distribution prediction system, etc.

- (National Ocean Satellite Center) Detection of coastal debris on uninhabited islands, monitoring of changes in marine facilities in jurisdictional waters, etc.

- (Korea Oceans and Fisheries Development Institute) Marine resource management, fish farm management, marine pollution management, etc.

- (National Institute of Fisheries Science) Identifying distribution of fishing boats using night light data, etc.

■ Bibliographic analysis results

● Marine research using satellite information is led by the United States and China, and China has overtaken the United States since 2020 (based on number of papers).

● Over the past 10 years (2014-2023), the United States has led maritime research using satellite information, followed by China, France, and India. Korea ranks 13th in the number of papers, 1/10th of the United States.

● The quality of papers was highest in France (relative number of citations (FWCI): 1.72), and the FWCI in the same field in Korea was 0.83, which was evaluated to be below the overall average (1.00).

● The most active research institute was the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and in Korea, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute ranked 64th as a government research institute, the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology ranked 41st as an academic institute, and Samsung ranked 47th as a company.

- The government research agency publishing the highest quality papers is NASA GSFC (2.25).

● The Chinese Academy of Sciences had the largest number of authors by institution with 965, followed by France's CNRS. In Korea, the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology had the most with 51 people.

■ Policy implications

● Space powers are actively using satellite information for ocean research.

- In particular, China has surpassed the United States in the number of papers since 2020. But the United States still leads the world in business.

● On the other hand, Korea is not making much progress in ocean research using satellite information in terms of number of papers, level of papers, number of researchers, etc.

- In order to secure competitiveness in this field, policies must be developed and promoted to strategically share and utilize satellite information, create an environment, and expand the pool of researchers.

● Proposal of ways to foster companies in the maritime sector using satellite information

- Develop and provide satellite-based marine pollution indicators in connection with SDG 14 (conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development)

∙ Through a domestic company, the world's coastal eutrophication and floating plastic debris density were measured and provided as SDG14 indicators (initially using existing satellite data, then measuring by developing our own small satellite).

∙ Based on this, secure technology and manpower to discover and promote highly commercial marine sector projects

- To explore the possibility of commercial services in the maritime sector using high-resolution satellite images, first establish and provide a service environment targeting overseas regions to lay the foundation for global enterprise.

∙ Promote improvements in laws and regulations so that they can be applied domestically after commercial feasibility has been proven.