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The accumulation of aquatic organisms on the wetted surfaces of vessels (i.e., vessel biofouling) negatively impacts world-wide shipping through reductions in vessel performance and fuel efficiency, and increases in emissions. Vessel biofouling is also a potent mechanism for the introduction and spread of marine non-indigenous species. Guidance and regulations from the International Maritime Organization, New Zealand, and California have recently been adopted to address biosecurity risks, primarily through preventive management. However, appropriate reactive management measures may be necessary for some vessels. Vessel in-water cleaning or treatment (VICT) has been identified as an important tool to improve operating efficiency and to reduce biosecurity risks. VICT can be applied proactively [i.e., to prevent the occurrence of, or to remove, microfouling (i.e., slime) or prevent the occurrence of macrofouling organisms - large, distinct multicellular organisms visible to the human eye], or reactively (i.e., to remove macrofouling organisms). However, unmanaged VICT includes its own set of biosecurity and water quality risks. Regulatory policies and technical advice from California and New Zealand have been developed to manage these risks, but there are still knowledge gaps related to the efficacy of available technologies. Research efforts are underway to address these gaps in order to inform the regulatory and non-regulatory application of VICT.

Humans have been sailing across seas and oceans for thousands of years. However, the story of large ships capable of affecting coastal ecology and shelf sedimentary processes is only about 100 years old. Modern large seagoing vessels with a draft of 10-20 m can cause resuspension of seabed sediment, erosion of the channel slope and shoal, enhancement of seafloor sediment activity and thickening of the active layer, thereby having a significant impact on seabed topography and sedimentation processes. However, little is known about the effects of this anthropogenic agent on shelf sedimentation due to limited observational data. Here, two sediment cores were collected from a shipping lane used by vessels of 5,000- to 50,000-ton off the coast of China to analyze their sedimentary properties, with focus on both the grain size and elements. It was found that ship disturbance selectively modified the sedimentary record, with the fine-grained sediment becoming increasingly unstable. In addition, there was a reduction in grain size of sediment finer than 6.25 Φ, which decreased by 11% after the disturbance by ship. Biogenic elements that were closely related to the ecological environment were significantly altered, with Br/Cl, Si/Ti, and Ca/Ti ratios all becoming significantly smaller. This indicated that frequent disturbance caused by ships had reduced the productivity in the waters near the shipping lane. In terms of sensitivity to the effects of ship navigation, the sedimentation response was relatively rapid and began to emerge from the commencement of ship navigation, whereas the ecological response became evident later than the sedimentation response and only appeared after a significant growth in the maritime transportation of China. Following the comparison of the two sediment cores, we propose that the constant rate of supply (CRS- with ship disturbance)-constant initial concentration (CIC- without ship disturbance) dual dating model be used to establish a dati

With the construction of China's ecological civilization and the proposal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, shore power has been vigorously developed as an important technology for the future green development of ports. However, China's electricity is still mostly coal-fired, which produces many carbon emissions. Coupled with regional differences, shore power is by no means certain to lower carbon emissions compared with fuel throughout China. Considering the power energy structure in different regions, this paper establishes a carbon emission correlation model between fuel and shore power during ship berthing, calculates the feasibility and actual emission reduction effect of shore power in coastal ports, and studies the restriction condition of starting time for the use of shore power for ships attached to ports according to the national policy of mandatory use of shore power. The results show that only a small part of coastal provinces and cities are suitable for using shore power, and it is limited by the berthing time of the ship. However, this condition is not related to the size of ships but related to the proportion of power generation. Therefore, the government should develop shore power according to local conditions, and vigorously increase the proportion of clean energy, so that the shore power truly achieve zero carbon emissions.

Women constitute a mere 1.28 % of currently active seafarers. This is despite the concerted international efforts over the years to promote female participation in the maritime industry. Previous studies have identified several causal factors for the dismal representation of women in this sector. However, the current disruptions in the maritime workplace, mainly caused by the introduction of digital technologies and automation, have created a novel environment that limits the relevance of several previous research findings. This study aims to address that gap by investigating the factors impacting women seafarers' participation in the transition period leading to a technology-rich, highly automated future in the maritime industry. This paper is part of a larger qualitative study that looks at workplace participation and learning by seafarers. The data for this study was collected through semi-structured interviews and focus-groups conducted among seafarers and other maritime stakeholders. The thematic analysis of the data identified some physical, social, and psychological barriers that impede the workplace participation of women seafarers. Additionally, our analysis shows that the progressive adoption of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship (MASS) and Shipping 4.0 will play an important role in improving women's participation in the shipping sector. However, to facilitate this, maritime policy makers and educators need to ensure a level playing field by providing gender-neutral access and opportunities to acquire skills and competences essential in a highly digitalised future workplace. Improving gender diversity is an essential step to align the maritime industry with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 5.

Cruise tourism is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. However, the health and safety of thousands of cruise tourists have been put in jeopardy due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The refusal of cruise ships calling has been the most significant reason behind the health hazards faced by passengers. Moreover, some coastal States have decided to close their borders, leaving passengers to their own fate in the case of a COVID-19 outbreak on board. Situation analysis contributes to demonstrating obstacles encountered in public health governance on cruise tourism. Information is collected from official websites of governments and international organizations to investigate the reasons behind the non-compliance of these countries with the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005). Academic literatures showcase different views on the necessity of revising the IHR (2005). Statistical analysis is used to assess core capacities required by the IHR (2005) of the coastal States. Coastal States reserve their rights to refuse foreign cruise ships to enter ports and to prevent the persons aboard from embarking or disembarking so long as conditions under Article 43 are met. However, some foreign cruise ships were directly refused to call by various coastal States without scientific evidence. This practice stems largely from the high risk of COVID-19 outbreaks in cruise ships and the resulting burden from the cruise pandemic response. Compared with improving IHR (2005), especially its dispute settlement mechanism, helping coastal States to boost their core capacities is more conducive to solving the problem of cruise public health governance. The improvement of core capacities can be carried out from the aspects of surveillance of cruise ships and risk assessment, medical examinations on cruise travelers, cruise design and cruise tourism management.

Studies of humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) habitat use in their Hawaiian breeding grounds have revealed that mother-calf pairs favor shallow waters to avoid harassment from males. However, human activity in these same waters may exert an opposing force on habitat use. To investigate this hypothesis, instantaneous scan samples of whale and vessel distribution were collected from West Maui, Hawaiʻi. Theodolite position fixes were combined with GIS techniques to determine the depths and seabed terrain type occupied by 161 humpback whale pods containing a calf (calf pods) and 872 pods without a calf (noncalf pods). We found no significant diurnal trends for noncalf pods, but calf pods occupied progressively deeper water over the course of each day. There was no evidence that this shift was related to (1) a "spillover" resulting from high mother-calf density in shallow water, (2) harassment by males occupying the same space as mother-calf pairs, or (3) the presence of mainly older and larger calves. However, while diurnal trends of whale-watching vessels largely mirrored those of mother-calf pods, nonwhale-watching vessels tended to remain in shallower waters throughout the day. These results suggest that nearshore vessels may negatively impact the natural preference of mother-calf pairs for shallow waters.

During underwater operations, divers must determine their own trajectories using the Inertial Navigation System (INS) they carry to improve operational efficiency. However, the INS contains a sensor bias that is also incorporated into the quadratic integration process to obtain the displacement, resulting in trajectory drift of the divers during prolonged self-guidance. To overcome the above problem, other aids are needed to correct the accumulated error of the INS. The single-beacon Assisted Inertial Navigation (AIN) method can improve the flexibility of inertial error correction while simplifying the localization equipment, which is suitable for the INS cumulative error correction scenario of divers. However, most of the traditional single-beacon assisted correction methods do not consider the effect of acoustic line bending on hydroacoustic ranging, and at the same time, they do not consider the problem of singular or pathological coefficient matrices introduced by inertial navigation neighbor localization deviations. Based on the above two shortcomings, this paper uses the acoustic velocity profile for acoustic line tracking, combines the localization idea of Mobile Primitives (MP), and proposes an MP-based acoustic line tracking-Assisted Inertial Navigation Localization (AINL) method, which constructs a sliding time window (STW) by taking the historical positioning of divers as a virtual primitive, and combines the nonlinear optimization method for iterative optimization search as a means to improve the accuracy and stability of self-navigation of the divers.

The Northwest Passage is becoming navigable for longer periods of the year. Ship traffic, however, still bears hazardous risks. A German-Canadian research team co-initiated by FRAUNHOFER wants to change that. In the project PASSAGES, it is conducting the preparatory work for a safe navigation through the icy waters.

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Port and maritime studies dealing with containerization have observed traffic concentration and dispersion throughout the world. Globalization, intermodal transportation, and technological revolutions in the shipping industry have resulted in both network extension and rationalization. However, lack of precise data on inter-port relations prevent the application of wide network theories to global maritime container networks, which are often examined through case studies of specific firms or regions. This paper presents an analysis of the global liner shipping network in 1996 and 2006, a period of rapid change in port hierarchies and liner service configurations. While it refers to literature on port system development, shipping networks, and port selection, it is one of the only analyses of the properties of the global container shipping network. The paper analyzes the relative position of ports in the global network through indicators of centrality. The results reveal a certain level of robustness in the global shipping network. While transhipment hub flows and gateway flows might slightly shift among nodes in the network, the network properties remain rather stable in terms of the main nodes polarizing the network and the overall structure of the system. Additionally, mapping the changing centrality of ports confirms the impacts of global trade and logistics shifts on the port hierarchy and indicates that changes are predominantly geographic.

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Death or injury to whales from vessel strike is one of the primary threats to whale populations worldwide. However, quantifying the rate of occurrence of these collisions is difficult because many incidents are not detected (particularly from large vessels) and therefore go unreported. Furthermore, varying reporting biases occur related to species identification, spatial coverage of reports and type of vessels involved. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has compiled a database of the worldwide occurrence of vessel strikes to cetaceans, within which Australia constitutes ~7% (35 reports) of the reported worldwide (~471 reports) vessel strike records involving large whales. Worldwide records consist largely of modern reports within the last two decades and historical evaluation of ship strike reports has mainly focused on the Northern Hemisphere. To address this we conducted a search of historical national and international print media archive databases to discover reports of vessel strikes globally, although with a focus on Australian waters. A significant number of previously unrecorded reports of vessel strikes were found for both Australia (76) and worldwide (140), resulting in a revised estimate of ~15% of global vessel strikes occurring in Australian waters. This detailed collation and analysis of vessel strike data in an Australian context has contributed to our knowledge of the worldwide occurrence of vessel strikes and challenges the notion that vessel strikes were historically rare in Australia relative to the rest of the world. The work highlights the need to examine historical records to provide context around current anthropogenic threats to marine fauna and demonstrates the importance of formalized reporting structures for effective collation of vessel strike reports. This paper examines the issues and biases in analysis of vessel strike data in general that would apply to any jurisdiction. Using the Australian data as an example we look at what

Strikes between vessels and cetaceans have significantly increased worldwide in the last decades. The Canary Islands archipelago is a geographical area with an important overlap of high cetacean diversity and maritime traffic, including high-speed ferries. Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), currently listed as a vulnerable species, are severely impacted by ship strikes. Nearly 60% of sperm whales' deaths are due to ship strikes in the Canary Islands. In such cases, subcutaneous, muscular and visceral extensive hemorrhages and hematomas, indicate unequivocal antemortem trauma. However, when carcasses are highly autolyzed, it is challenging to distinguish whether the trauma occurred ante- or post-mortem. The presence of fat emboli within the lung microvasculature is used to determine a severe "in vivo" trauma in other species. We hypothesized fat emboli detection could be a feasible, reliable and accurate forensic tool to determine ante-mortem ship strikes in stranded sperm whales, even in decomposed carcasses. In this study, we evaluated the presence of fat emboli by using an osmium tetroxide (OsO4)-based histochemical technique in lung tissue of 24 sperm whales, 16 of them with evidence of ship strike, stranded and necropsied in the Canaries between 2000 and 2017. About 70% of them presented an advanced autolysis. Histological examination revealed the presence of OsO4-positive fat emboli in 13 out of the 16 sperm whales with signs of ship strike, and two out of eight of the "control" group, with varying degrees of abundance and distribution. A classification and regression tree was developed to assess the cut off of fat emboli area determining the high or low probability for diagnosing ship-strikes, with a sensitivity of 89% and a specificity of 100%. The results demonstrated: (1) the usefulness of fat detection as a diagnostic tool for "in vivo" trauma, even in decomposed tissues kept in formaldehyde for long periods of time; and (2) that, during

The Arctic is among the most rapidly-changing regions on Earth. Diminishing levels of sea-ice has increased opportunities for maritime activities in historically inaccessible areas such as the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage. Degradation of Arctic marine ecosystems may accompany expanding vessel operations through introduced underwater noise, potential for large oil spills, among other things; and may compound stressors already effecting biological populations due to climate change. Assessments are needed to track changes in vessel traffic patterns and associated environmental impacts. We analyzed Arctic-wide vessel Automatic Identification System data 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2017 to quantify the amount and spatial distribution of vessel operations, assess possible changes in these operations, and establish a baseline for future monitoring. Nearly 400,000 vessel transits were analyzed. Number of trips, hours of operation, and amount of sea surface exposed to vessel traffic were used to compare operations between 14 delineated waterways. Operations were extensive and diverse: an average of 132,828 trips were made annually by over 5,000 different vessels. Transits were made in all areas studied and all months of the year. Maritime activities were intensive in some areas, but ice-limited in others. Amount of sea surface exposed to vessel traffic exceeded 70% in all but three areas. Bulk carriers, cargo ships, passenger/cruise ships, research survey ships, and vessels supporting oil/gas-related activities were represented. However, fishing vessels, primarily in the BARENTS, BERING, and Norwegian Seas, surpassed operations of all other vessel types and comprised about one-half of all voyages each year. We observed no overt increasing or decreasing trends in vessel traffic volume in our limited study period. Instead, inter-year variation was evident. While the number of unique vessels and transits increased year-to-year, hours of operation declined in the s

The recurrence of lethal ship-whale collisions ('ship strikes') has prompted management entities across the globe to seek effective ways for reducing collision risk. Here we describe 'active whale avoidance' defined as a mariner making operational decisions to reduce the chance of a collision with a sighted whale. We generated a conceptual model of active whale avoidance and, as a proof of concept, apply data to the model based on observations of humpback whales surfacing in the proximity of large cruise ships, and simulations run in a full-mission bridge simulator and commonly used pilotage software. Application of the model demonstrated that (1) the opportunities for detecting a surfacing whale are often limited and temporary, (2) the cumulative probability of detecting one of the available 'cues' of whale's presence (and direction of travel) decreases with increased ship-to-whale distances, and (3) following detection time delays occur related to avoidance operations. These delays were attributed to the mariner evaluating competing risks (e.g., risk of whale collision vs. risk to human life, the ship, or other aspects of the marine environment), deciding upon an appropriate avoidance action, and achieving a new operational state by the ship once a maneuver is commanded. We thus identify several options for enhancing whale avoidance including training Lookouts to focus search efforts on a 'Cone of Concern,' defined here as the area forward of the ship where whales are at risk of collision based on the whale and ship's transit/swimming speed and direction of travel. Standardizing protocols for rapid communication of relevant sighting information among bridge team members can also increase avoidance by sharing information on the whale that is of sufficient quality to be actionable. We also found that, for marine pilots in Alaska, a slight change in course tends to be preferable to slowing the ship in response to a single sighted whale, owing, in part, to the substan

Most species of whales are vulnerable to vessel collisions, and the probability of lethality increases logistically with vessel speed. An Automatic Identification System (AIS) can provide valuable vessel activity data, but terrestrial-based AIS has a limited spatial range. As the need for open ocean monitoring increases, AIS broadcasts relayed over earth-orbiting satellites, satellite AIS (SAIS), provides a method for expanding the range of AIS broadcast reception. We used SAIS data from 2013 and 2014 to calculate vessel density and speed over ground around the coast of Washington state in the northwestern United States. Nearby shipping lanes connecting the Ports of Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and in Canada, Vancouver, have the greatest density of vessel traffic arriving and departing. Knowledge of shipping activity is important in this area due to the nearby presence of NOAA designated Cetacean Density and Distribution Working Group's Biologically Important Areas (BIA) for large whale species vulnerable to vessel collisions. We quantified density and speed for each vessel type that transits through BIA's. We found that cargo and tanker vessels traveled the farthest distance at the greatest speeds. As ship-strike risk assessments have traditionally relied on terrestrial AIS, we explored issues in the application of SAIS data. Temporal gaps in SAIS data led to a resulting systematic underestimation of vessel speed in calculated speed over ground. However, SAIS can be helpful in documenting minimum vessel speeds across large geographic areas and across national boundaries, especially beyond the reach of terrestrial AIS receivers. SAIS data can also be useful in examining vessel density at broad scales and could be used to assess basin-wide open ocean routes. Future use of additional satellite platforms with AIS receivers and technological advances will help rectify this issue and improve data coverage and quality.

Background: Commercial shipping is identified as a major source of anthropogenic underwater noise in several ecologically sensitive areas. Any development project likely to increase marine traffic can thus be required to assess environmental impacts of underwater noise. Therefore, project holders are increasingly engaging in underwater noise modeling relying on ships' underwater noise source levels published in the literature. However, a lack of apparent consensus emerges from the scientific literature as discrepancies up to 30 dB are reported for ships' broadband source levels belonging to the same vessel class and operating under similar conditions. We present a statistical meta-analysis of individual ships' broadband source levels available in the literature so far to identify which factors likely explain these discrepancies.

China has deployed a network of sensors and communications capabilities between Hainan Island and the Paracel Islands in the northern South China Sea. These capabilities are part of a "Blue Ocean Information Network" (蓝海信息网络) developed by China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), a state-owned company, to aid in the exploration and control of the maritime environment using information technology. The network constructed in the northern South China Sea between early 2016 and 2019 is referred to as a demonstration system. However, future plans for the Blue Ocean Information Network involve expanding the sensor and communications network to the rest of the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and other ocean areas far from Chinese territory. While the Blue Ocean Information Network is largely cast as an environmental monitoring and communications system, the military utility of its sensing and communications functions makes its development important to monitor.