Oceans are much more crowded than we though: New maps shed light on the problem

Scientists have managed to create the clearest map of human activity in the sea, revealing previously hidden fishing vessels, oil towers, and offshore wind farms. This happened thanks to the development of artificial intelligence and satellite imagery.

The maps, published in the journal Nature by the non-profit organization Global Fishing Watch with the support of Google, show 75% of industrial fishing vessels and 30% of transport and energy vessels that evade public tracking. Researchers say these white spots in water resource exploitation could hamper global efforts to conserve and protect the world's oceans.

According to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted last year, governments have pledged to protect 30% of the Earth's land and waters by 2023.

"The question is, what 30% should we protect? You can't have a discussion without knowing where the fishing and oil platforms are," says David Kroodsma, one of the authors of the paper and director of research and innovation at Global Fishing Watch.

Until now, Global Fishing Watch and other organizations have relied primarily on the maritime Automatic Identification System (AIS) to see what's happening in the oceans. The system tracks vessels using radio signals but has serious limitations as it can be easily disabled or travel to areas where the signal is weak.

To process such a huge amount of data, the scientists created three AI models that categorized each detected vessel, estimated its size, and sorted it into different activities. In total, the scientists observed about 15% of the world's oceans, where 75% of industrial activity takes place, paying attention to both ship movements and the development of fixed offshore structures such as oil towers and wind turbines between 2017 and 2021.

While fishing activity declined at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to public tracking systems, satellites have detected heavy vessel traffic in areas that "previously showed little or no activity", notably around South and Southeast Asia, and the northern and western coasts of Africa.