The eruption of the undersea volcano near Tonga reminded the world of disasters resulting from volcanic tsunamis. Japan, which has many submarine volcanoes and volcanic islands, must strengthen its monitoring of these volcanoes and conduct world-leading offshore exploration and observation in preparation for catastrophic disasters caused by super-eruptions, which will definitely occur in the future.

The research topics for the next decade in the Japanese oceanographic community are discussed, with a focus on the coastal oceans. The Oceanographic Society of Japan formed a working group in 2021 to discuss the future directions in research related to coastal oceans, polar oceans, mid-latitude oceans, tropical oceans, deep ocean, air-sea boundary, and new methods and problems. The report of a year-and-a-half-long discussion was recently published, and here in this article, I will introduce the contents written in the chapter on coastal oceans, which is about research conducted on coastal regions around Japan.

Remarkable progress has been made in genome sequencing technology and a wealth of data on gene function has been collected. In addition, by combining genome editing technologies that have been developed in recent years, there is a possibility we can breed and selectively breed fish species in a short span of time, which couldn’t be managed thus far. Moving forward, we can expect the creation of a new form of aquaculture and revitalization of regions. Here, I would like to introduce genome editing in the context of aquaculture as well as activities towards its acceptance in society.