Skip the menu

MOE home > Nature and Parks > EBSA home > Offshore Surface > 403 Eastern Honshu mixed water region

 

Offshore Surface 403 Eastern Honshu mixed water region

Note; The offshore surface areas have many physically fluid factors such as ocean current or seasonal changes, which may effect on the spawning grounds or distribution areas of certain organisms. Therefore, it is difficult to fix certain area as EBSAs of offshore surface spatially. In addition, available data for analysis are very limited. Therefore, the EBSAs of offshore surface shows the probabilistic distribution of important area as a result of mechanical analysis using best available data at the time, so that there are problems such as that some places considered to be consecutive from the ecological features are divided. Further analysis will be required to improve when the data became available in the future, and it is necessary to review the analysis method.

Basic Information A separate window opensReferences

Area (km2) 104067

Reason(s) for selection A separate window opensCriteria

Selected due to high levels on the criteria 2, 5, 6. And selected by the MARXAN software.

Characteristics A separate window opensReferences

These are waters where the Oyashio Current and the Kuroshio Current mix, referred to as a Kuroshio-Oyashio transition region (mixed water region). Here a complex front structure forms that includes eddies of both warm and cold water, and the Tsugaru Current flows in off the Sanriku Coast, resulting in a very complex marine environment. As a result, these are waters where a unique biota has formed in which warm-water and cold-water species coexist, and they also show high levels of productivity. Krill are abundant off the Sanriku Coast from spring through early summer, making them important feeding waters for baleen whales, which feed on krill, as well as shearwaters that have crossed the equator heading north. The Kuroshio-Oyashio transition region offshore serves as foraging and growing area for epipelagic fish and squids such as Pacific saury, mackerels and sardines, and large migrating fish such as tunas and skipjacks, and the waters from the continental shelf to the continental slope are home to diverse, useful resources such as cod, flounder, and others.

Species information (*) A separate window opensData source

Criteria 2
<Mamal>
Neophocaena phocaenoides (Fineless porpoise)[Br/Ne]
<Pisces>
Ammodytes personatus (Japanese sand lance) [Sp]
Laemonema longipes (Threadfin hakeling) [Sp]
Gadus macrocephalus (Pacific cod) [Sp]
<Cephalopoda>
Watasenia scintillans (Firefly squid) [Sp]
Criteria 3
<Pisces>
Squalus acanthias (Spiny dogfish)

* This is the species list of which meet the criteria. In that matter, this list does not include all species that inhabit the individual area.
Abbreviation in the information is as follows.
[Br/Ne] : Adjacent water of breeding area or nesting site
[Sp] : Spawning area

 

Back to the top of this page