GLOBAL FISHING WATCH NETS PREVIOUSLY UNDETECTED DARK FLEETS

KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 (Bernama) -- Global Fishing Watch has developed and publicly released the first ever global map of previously undetected dark fleets, or vessels that do not broadcast their location or appear in public monitoring systems.

Powered by satellite radar imagery and machine learning, the map layer is updated daily within the main Global Fishing Watch map application.

The portal is available for free to anyone in the world with an internet connection, helping arm authorities, researchers and the public alike with the power to monitor vessel activity in all coastal waters, identify dark fleet patterns and build the necessary understanding to quantify threats to the ocean.

The user-friendly new map layer helps create equitable access to marine-related data in time for World Ocean Day on June 8.

“It is surprising how little we have known to date, about the true scale of human activity on the water,” said David Kroodsma, director of research and innovation at Global Fishing Watch in a statement.

“If you combine vessels that intentionally shut off their signal with the significant number of boats that don’t make their whereabouts known in public systems at all, you end up with gaps in data, monitoring and accountability.

“We are using satellite radar imagery to reduce that information gap and put our findings at the fingertips of those who want to ensure our ocean is managed equitably and sustainably.”

The new global map layer draws from a massive data-processing pipeline and uses machine learning to crunch petabytes, or millions of gigabytes, of radar imagery taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites.

By analysing the entire archive of Sentinel-1 radar imagery, Global Fishing Watch has made 20 million detections of sea-going vessels greater than approximately 10 metres in length—and matched these detections to 100 billion GPS points from vessels broadcasting their position on the automatic identification system.

Amplifying the potential of satellite radar technology, Global Fishing Watch partnered with the Defense Innovation Unit in July 2021 to host the xView3 competition. The challenge invited machine learning developers from all over the world to create and submit computer algorithms to help detect dark vessels, drawing 1,900 registrants from 67 countries.

Global Fishing Watch is an international nonprofit organisation dedicated to advancing ocean governance through increased transparency of human activity at sea.

-- BERNAMA