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Europe Okays French Port Extension.

U.S. West Coast dockworkers, shippers to talk contract extension.

U.S. West Coast dockworkers ratify contract extension with shippers.

A task force on cruise tourism led by tourism secretary had recommended extension of cabotage relaxation beyond February 2019 ‘for sending a good signal to the cruise community.

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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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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

Biological invasions often result from transfers of organisms during trade activities. In coastal ecosystems, commercial ships are a dominant source of species transfers globally, and ships' ballast water (BW) is a major focus of biosecurity management and policy to reduce invasions. While trade drives shipping patterns, diverse vessel types and behaviors exist such that the quantitative relationship between trade and BW dynamics is still poorly resolved, limiting both science and management. Here, we evaluated a new method to predict BW discharge using trade data, by explicitly considering known BW practices according to vessel and commodity type. Specifically, we estimated the relationship between tonnage of overseas exports and BW discharge volume for San Francisco Bay (SFB), California, as a model system to demonstrate this approach. Using extensive datasets on shipborne exports and BW discharge, we (a) evaluated spatial and temporal patterns across nearly 20 ports in this estuary from 2006 to 2014 and (b) developed a predictive model to estimate overseas BW discharge volume from foreign export tonnage for the whole estuary. Although vessel arrivals in SFB remained nearly constant from 2006 to 2014, associated tonnage of exported commodities more than doubled and BW discharge more than tripled. Increased BW volume resulted from increased frequency and per capita discharge of bulk carriers from Asia and tankers from western Central America and Hawaii, reflecting shifts in direction of commodity movement. The top 11 export commodities (59% of total export tonnage) were transported on bulk carriers or tankers. In a multivariate linear model, annual tonnage of these top 11 export commodities by vessel type were strong predictors of total bay-wide overseas BW discharge (adjusted R2 = 0.92), creating the potential to estimate past or future BW delivery in SFB. Bulk export tonnage provides valuable insights into BW flux, since most BW discharge to ports is driven by

A new study in Science Advances led by UMBC's Tianle YUAN used satellite data from 2003 - 2020 to determine the effect of fuel regulations on pollution from cargo ships. The research team's data revealed significant changes in sulfur pollution after regulations went into effect in 2015 and 2020. Their extensive data set can also contribute to answering a bigger question: How do pollutants and other particles interact with clouds to affect global temperatures overall?

It is significant for port ship scheduling and traffic management to be able to obtain more precise location and shape information from ship instance segmentation in SAR pictures. Instance segmentation is more challenging than object identification and semantic segmentation in high-resolution RS images. Predicting class labels and pixel-wise instance masks is the goal of this technique, which is used to locate instances in images. Despite this, there are now just a few methods available for instance segmentation in high-resolution RS data, where a remote-sensing image's complex background makes the task more difficult. This research proposes a unique method for YOLOv7 to improve HR-RS image segmentation one-stage detection. First, we redesigned the structure of the one-stage fast detection network to adapt to the task of ship target segmentation and effectively improve the efficiency of instance segmentation. Secondly, we improve the backbone network structure by adding two feature optimization modules, so that the network can learn more features and have stronger robustness. In addition, we further modify the network feature fusion structure, improve the module acceptance domain to increase the prediction ability of multi-scale targets, and effectively reduce the amount of model calculation. Finally, we carried out extensive validation experiments on the sample segmentation datasets HRSID and SSDD. The experimental comparisons and analyses on the HRSID and SSDD datasets show that our model enhances the predicted instance mask accuracy, enhancing the instance segmentation efficiency of HR-RS images, and encouraging further enhancements in the projected instance mask accuracy. The suggested model is a more precise and efficient segmentation in HR-RS imaging as compared to existing approaches.

Global warming has led to rapid warming in the Arctic region and continuous melting of ice and snow, and the seaworthiness of the Arctic shipping routes is increasing significantly. This has also aroused widespread concern from the international community regarding the environmental impact of Arctic shipping activities. Thus, this paper reviews 75 articles to evaluate the different impacts of Arctic shipping on the region's environment. The research results show that the impact of current Arctic shipping activities is extensive, and it can identify three major impacts: impact on water bodies, impact of air emissions and impact on animal survival. In this context, to mitigate the growing negative impact of shipping activities on the fragile Arctic environment, it is essential to adopt technical and operational solutions for ships and formulate new or stricter standards and rules for Arctic shipping activities. At the same time, existing research has gaps in four areas: Arctic environmental and ecological baseline surveys, quantitative research on the direct and synergistic environmental impacts from Arctic shipping, implications of Arctic shipping activities on aboriginal health, and the Arctic shipping gas emission model based on artificial intelligence technology. We recommend enriching relevant research to enhance the ability to assess the impacts of Arctic shipping routes.

One direct consequence of Arctic warming is the expansion of navigable portions of the Arctic Ocean. As a result, vessel traffic and the accompanying threats of spills, strikes and disturbance is intensifying throughout the Arctic. In the BERING Sea, these threats to the environment, wildlife and to the people who rely on marine resources for food and cultural continuity, are acute. We examined the spatial relevance of an Area To Be Avoided (ATBA), a shipping-risk mitigation measure, established around St. Lawrence Island with respect to seabirds, as sentinel species, habitat use. We studied four seabird species (common murre Uria aalge, thick-billed murre U. lomvia, crested auklet Aethia cristatella, black-legged kittiwake Rissa tridactyla) breeding at St. Lawrence Island in the northern BERING Sea. GPS tracking data from 47 at-sea foraging trips showed that both murre species and crested auklets distributed outside the ATBA, during at least one stage of the breeding season. A larger dataset based on the birds' red blood cell isotopic signatures confirmed that for murres, the tracked individuals covered the broad niche exploited by these species. Habitat modelling further showed that the birds' most suitable marine habitats were associated with seasonal surface chlorophyll blooms, and largely extended beyond the ATBA on the shelf north of the island. Data on the murres' diet and diving behavior emphasized the importance of the shelf as a foraging habitat for these birds. We suggest that extending the ATBA to the north by only 35 km, would include areas of maximal habitat suitability. This extension would better protect seabirds, their foraging habitats and the cultural continuity of St. Lawrence Islanders, against growing threats stemming from Arctic warming.