Our monitoring was started in 1991 using the ferry route between Pusan (Korea) and Kobe (Japan) aiming at grasping the gradient of anthropogenic effects by scanning the Seto Inland Sea, into which loading of man-made pollutants is conspicuous and the Tsushima Strait, into which Tsushima Current (an extension of oligotrophic Kuroshio Current) flows using single ship. After this route was closed in 1993, this aim was succeeded in 1994 by two ships: one plies in Seto inland sea between Osaka and Beppu and another plies between Osaka and Okinawa crossing the Kuroshio Current.

After the continuation of nearly one decade, the mission was transferred from CGER to Marine Environment Laboratory of NIES in March 2001. This monitoring owes largely to the cooperation of the ferry company and other organizations listed in Table 1. In this Web site, the monitoring results obtained in Seto Inland Sea from 1994 to 2001 will be introduced(Fig. 1).

From the viewpoint of evaluating the anthropogenic effect on the cycle of substances such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and silicon (Si)^{3), 4)}, spatial distribution, seasonal, and year to year variation were the major components for the monitoring as well as those of the phytoplankton properties.

Figure 1. Map of Observation Routes
(Click Seto Inland Sea for the extension)