Yellow Sea - Flora and Fauna

Flora and Fauna

The sea is rich in seaweed (predominantly kelp, Laminaria japonica), cephalopods, crustaceans, shellfishes, clams, and especially in blue-green algae which bloom in summer and contribute to the water color (see image above). For example, the seaweed production in the area was as high as 1.5 million tonnes in 1979 for China alone. The abundance of all those species increases toward the south and indicates high sea productivity that accounts for the large fish production in the sea.

The southern part of the Yellow Sea, including the entire west coast of Korea, contains a 10 km wide belt of intertidal mudflats, which has the total area of 2,850 km2 and is maintained by 4–10 m tides. Those flats consist of highly productive sediments with a rich benthic fauna and are of great importance for migratory waders and shorebirds. Surveys show that the area is the single most important site for migratory birds on northward migration in the entire East Asian – Australasian Flyway, with more than 35 species occurring in internationally significant numbers. Two million birds, at minimum, pass through at the time, and about half that number use it on southward migration. About 300,000 migrating birds were transiting annually only through the Saemangeum tidal flat area. This estuary was however dammed by South Korea in 1991–2006 that resulted in drying off the land. Land reclamation also took 43% of the intertidal area in China between 1950s and 2002, and there are plans to reclaim a further 45%.