For those people out there who love fishing, or for those whose it is their primary means of making a living, a new strategic partnership has been formed between the entities of ‘SkyTruth’, ‘Oceana’, and ‘Google’. As a result of this partnership, a brand new, GIS technology platform, called the ‘Global Fishing Watch’, has been launched.
The ‘Global Fishing Watch’ makes use of satellite data to give the first, true global view of the commercial fishing sector. A prototype of this was revealed at the ‘2014 IUCN World Parks Congress’, held in Sydney, Australia.
In order to make this new technology work, information and data is collected and analyzed from the ‘Automatic Identification System’ (AIS) network. The AIS basically gives a snapshot of a ship’s location anywhere on the planet’s oceans or seas.
This is based upon a GPS broadcast which is created, and sent out. The AIS was originally designed to avoid help avoid collisions between cargo ships and other types of maritime vessels.
But with the ‘Global Fishing Watch’, all of this other stimuli is removed as just described, thus providing a clear view of just fishing vessels and fishing related activities, which are happening around the world.
Also, using utilizing the Global Fishing Watch “ . . . will help bring back the world’s fisheries, protecting and enhancing the livelihoods of the hundreds of millions of people who depend on ocean fisheries for food and income.” This is according to the CEO of Oceana, Mr. Andrew Sharpless. (SOURCE: http://www.directionsmag.com/pressreleases/skytruth-oceana-google-announce-new-technology-initiative-to-illuminate-glo/425005).
As a result, people who make fishing their primary livelihood, can now see themselves, firsthand, how they are contributing a much more eco-friendly environment. One of the main goals of the ‘Global Fishing Watch’ project is to bring together the technological breakthroughs made in Cloud Computing and the techniques used in Big Data analysis.
Through this combination, it is hoped that the environmental damages which have already been inflicted onto the world’s waterways can be reversed.
Government entities have been using GIS technology for decades. GeoTel Communications offers fiber network maps, fiber lit buildings, and other fiber data sets to assist government officials in analyzing fiber infrastructure in a spatial, map-like environment. If you are interested in obtaining fiber network maps for a particular city or metro area, contact GeoTel Communications at 407.788.8888.
