Satellite imagery reveals extensive undisclosed industrial activity across the ocean
Innovative research, harnessing AI and satellite imagery, shows the expanding footprint of human activity at sea, and reveals previously unmapped industrial use of the ocean and how it is changing.
By synthesizing GPS data with radar and optical imagery, researchers detected ships failing to broadcast their positions. And then they trained machine learning models to identify which of these were likely fishing vessels.
Their analysis revealed about 75 percent of industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked.
China’s offshore wind energy saw the most striking growth, increasing ninefold from 2017 – 2021, averaging about 950 turbine installations each year.
But despite their size and integral role in the supply chain, more than 25 percent of these transport and energy vessels are missing from public tracking systems.
This research marks the beginning of a new era for ocean governance – one that is founded on transparency.
We are mapping all industrial human activity at sea, making it freely available to the world in an initiative we call the open ocean project.