20240104
Paolo et al.1 show that satellite data can be used to map the human presence on the oceans to an unprecedented extent. The findings reveal that a substantial amount of human activity is not publicly tracked.
The authors used deep learning to probe satellite imagery from two sources to detect both stationary and movable objects, mostly in coastal waters, across the global ocean from 2017 to 2021. The authors estimate that 72–76% of all industrial fishing vessels, and 21–30% of transport and energy vessels, are not accounted for by AISs. The findings show that estimates based on previously available, incomplete data massively underestimated the extent of fishing operations in regions such as South and south-east Asia.