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The growing concerns about the negative effects caused by whale watching on wild cetacean populations are evincing the need to measure whale watching effort more precisely. The current alternatives do not provide sufficient information or imply time-consuming and staff-intensive tasks that limit their effectiveness to establish the maximum carrying capacity for this tourist activity. A methodology based on big data analysis, using Automatic Identification System (AIS) messages can provide valuable vessel activity information, which is necessary to estimate whale watching effort in areas with cetacean populations. We used AIS data to automatically detect whale watching operations and quantify whale watching effort with high spatial and temporal resolution in the Canary Islands off the west African coast. The results obtained in this study are very encouraging, proving that the methodology can estimate seasonal and annual trends in the whale watching effort. The methodology has also proved to be effective in providing detailed spatial information about the whale watching effort, which makes an interesting tool to manage spatial regulations and enforce exclusion zones. The widespread use of AIS devices in maritime navigation provides an enormous potential to easily extend this methodology to other regions worldwide. Any public strategy aimed at the sustainable use of marine resources should enhance the use of this kind of information technologies, collecting and archiving detailed information on the activity of all the vessels, especially in marine protected areas.

In general, a single scalar hydrophone cannot determine the orientation of an underwater acoustic target. However, through a study of sea trial experimental data, the authors found that the sound field interference structures of inbound and outbound ships differ owing to changes in the topography of the shallow continental shelf. Based on this difference, four different convolutional neural networks (CNNs), AlexNet, visual geometry group, residual network (ResNet), and dense convolutional network (DenseNet), are trained to classify inbound and outbound ships using only a single scalar hydrophone. Two datasets, a simulation and a sea trial, are used in the CNNs. Each dataset is divided into a training set and a test set according to the proportion of 40% to 60%. The simulation dataset is generated using underwater acoustic propagation software, with surface ships of different parameters (tonnage, speed, draft) modeled as various acoustic sources. The experimental dataset is obtained using submersible buoys placed near Qingdao Port, including 321 target ships. The ships in the dataset are labeled inbound or outbound using ship automatic identification system data. The results showed that the accuracy of the four CNNs based on the sea trial dataset in judging vessels' inbound and outbound situations is above 90%, among which the accuracy of DenseNet is as high as 99.2%. This study also explains the physical principle of classifying inbound and outbound ships by analyzing the low-frequency analysis and recording diagram of the broadband noise radiated by the ships. This method can monitor ships entering and leaving ports illegally and with abnormal courses in specific sea areas.

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.

US ports to receive a total of US$170m for port deepening works.

One of the last pristine marine soundscapes, the Arctic, is exposed to increasing anthropogenic activities due to climate-induced decrease in sea ice coverage. In this study, we combined movement and behavioral data from animal-borne tags in a controlled sound exposure study to describe the reactions of narwhals, Monodon monoceros, to airgun pulses and ship noise. Sixteen narwhals were live captured and instrumented with satellite tags and Acousonde acoustic-behavioral recorders, and 11 of them were exposed to airgun pulses and vessel sounds. The sound exposure levels (SELs) of pulses from a small airgun (3.4 L) used in 2017 and a larger one (17.0 L) used in 2018 were measured using drifting recorders. The experiment was divided into trials with airgun and ship-noise exposure, intertrials with only ship-noise, and pre- and postexposure periods. Both trials and intertrials lasted ∼4 h on average per individual. Depending on the location of the whales, the number of separate exposures ranged between one and eight trials or intertrials. Received pulse SELs dropped below 130 dB re 1 μPa2 s by 2.5 km for the small airgun and 4-9 km for the larger airgun, and background noise levels were reached at distances of ∼3 and 8-10.5 km, respectively, for the small and big airguns. Avoidance reactions of the whales could be detected at distances >5 km in 2017 and >11 km in 2018 when in line of sight of the seismic vessel. Meanwhile, a ∼30% increase in horizontal travel speed could be detected up to 2 h before the seismic vessel was in line of sight. Applying line of sight as the criterion for exposure thus excludes some potential pre-response effects, and our estimates of effects must therefore be considered conservative. The whales reacted by changing their swimming speed and direction at distances between 5 and 24 km depending on topographical surroundings where the exposure occurred. The propensity of the whales to move towards the shore increased with increasing exp

Collisions with ships (ship strikes) are a pressing conservation concern for fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) along western North America. Fin whales exhibit strong diel patterns in dive behavior, remaining near the surface for most of the night, but how this behavior affects ship-strike risk is unknown. We combined diel patterns of surface use, habitat suitability predictions, and ship traffic data to evaluate spatial and temporal trends in ship-strike risk to fin whales of the California Current System (CCS). We tested a range of surface-use scenarios and found that both increased use of the upper water column and increased ship traffic contribute to elevated ship-strike risk at night. Lengthening nights elevate risk during winter throughout the CCS, though the Southern California Bight experienced consistently high risk both day and night year-round. Within designated shipping lanes, total annual nighttime strike risk was twice daytime risk. Avoidance probability models based on ship speed were used to compare the potential efficacy of speed restrictions at various scales. Speed reductions within lanes may be an efficient remediation, but they would address only a small fraction (13%) of overall ship-strike risk. Additional speed restrictions in the approaches to lanes would more effectively reduce overall risk.

The huge fuel consumption of shipping activities has a great impact on the ecological environment, port city environment, air quality, and residents' health. This paper uses Automatic Identification System (AIS) data records and ship-related data in 2021 coastal waters of the United States to calculate pollutant emissions from ships in 30 ports of the United States in 2021. After calculating the pollutant emissions from ships at each port, the multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) model is used to analyze the factors affecting the ship pollutant emissions. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) model is used to investigate the spatial heterogeneity of various factors affecting the characteristics of ship pollutant emissions at different scales. This paper mainly compares the effect of models of GWR and MGWR. MGWR may truly reveal the scale difference between different variables. While controlling the social and economic attributes, the coastline length, container throughput, and population are used to describe the spatial effects of ship pollutant emissions in the United States. The results denote that the distribution trend of ship pollutant emissions has a gap based on various ship types and ports. NOx accounts for the highest proportion of pollutant emissions from port ships, followed by SO₂ and CO. The impact coefficients of coastline length and population on pollutant emissions in port areas are mostly positive, indicating that the growth of coastline length and population will increase pollutant emissions in port areas, while the effect of container throughput is opposite. Relevant departments should put forward effective measures to curb NOx emission. Port managers should reasonably plan the number of ship transactions according to the coastline length of the port.

Ocean-based industries like shipping, aquaculture, and wind energy are growing at an unprecedented rate resulting in challenges related to siting and environmental management. As marine aquaculture and other ocean-based industries continue to expand, robust marine spatial planning analyses that reconcile existing ocean uses and integrate pertinent environmental and planning data are critical for identifying compatible locations. In this study, a series of geospatial analyses were used for aquaculture siting within and around a heavily trafficked and highly utilized maritime port in the San Diego Bay area of California, USA. Using a centralized geodatabase representing key aquaculture planning spatial datasets, recommendations for specific areas for aquaculture were developed based on appropriate environmental conditions for candidate shellfish and algae aquaculture species culture systems. Areas that were known constraints were first identified to determine potentially usable areas for shellfish and macroalgae (i.e., seaweed) aquaculture using an exclusion analysis, a type of multi-criteria decision analysis, to eliminate all areas without compatibility. Within the remaining usable area, we further considered shellfish and macroalgae culture system-specific factors within a 'culture systems analysis' to determine where different culture systems have potential for success. This analysis provides a foundation of coastal intelligence for guiding the aquaculture industry and natural resource managers towards appropriate siting decisions. This study can serve as a replicable example of aquaculture spatial planning approaches for siting sustainable aquaculture and other blue economy industries.

On Saturday, a guided missile struck the United Arab Emirates' HSV Swift, a high-speed ferry formerly operated by the US Navy off the coast of Yemen, prompting the US to respond with two guided-missile destroyers and an amphibious transport dock ship from the USS Dwight D. EISENHOWER carrier strike group, Fox News reports.

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is a real-time network of transmitters and receivers that allow vessel movements to be broadcast, tracked, and recorded. Though traditionally used for real-time maritime applications related to keeping track of vessel traffic for collision avoidance, there is increasing interest in using AIS data and the AIS platform for maritime safety planning, resource management, and weather forecasting. AIS data are being made tractable for alternative non-real-time applications like determining trends and patterns in vessel traffic and helping to prioritize where modern bathymetric surveys are needed to ensure safe maritime transit. The AIS is also being used for widespread transmission of critical environmental conditions information, such as sea state and weather, to mariners, forecasters, and emergency response providers. Several pilot projects are underway that demonstrate the capacity and promise of AIS data and the AIS platform to serve multiple purposes, providing overall maritime domain awareness while maintaining its most important objective of tracking vessels to aid safe, secure, efficient and environmentally sound maritime operations.

Spatial risk assessments are an effective management tool used in multiple-use marine parks to balance the needs for conservation of natural properties and to provide for varying socio-economic demands for development. The multiple-use Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) has recently experienced substantial increases in current and proposed port expansions and subsequent shipping. Globally, large whale populations are recovering from commercial whaling and ship strike is a significant threat to some populations and a potential welfare issue for others. Within the GBRMP, there is spatial conflict between the main breeding ground of the east Australian humpback whale population and the main inner shipping route that services several large natural resource export ports. The east coast humpback whale population is one of the largest humpback whale populations globally, exponentially increasing (11% per annum) close to the maximum potential rate and estimated to reach pre-exploitation population numbers in the next 4-5 years. We quantify the relative risk of ship strike to calving and mating humpback whales, with areas of highest relative risk coinciding with areas offshore of two major natural resource export ports. We found females with a dependent calf had a higher risk of ship strike compared to groups without a calf when standardized for group size and their inshore movement and coastal dependence later in the breeding season increases their overlap with shipping, although their lower relative abundance decreases risk. The formalization of a two-way shipping route has provided little change to risk and projected risk estimates indicate a three- to five-fold increase in risk to humpback whales from ship strike over the next 10 years. Currently, the whale Protection Area in the GBRMP does not cover the main mating and calving areas, whereas provisions within the legislation for establishment of a Special Management Area during the peak breeding season in high-ris

US warships sent to area where Iran-backed rebels attacked Saudi-led coalition ship.

US warships sent to area where Iran-backed rebels attacked Saudi-led coalition ship.

US Coast Guard, JDF seize US$2m worth of marijuana in C'bean Sea.

Shipping emissions are likely to increase significantly in the coming decades, alongside increasing emphasis on the sustainability and environmental impacts of the maritime transport sector. Exhaust gas cleaning systems ("scrubbers"), using seawater or fresh water as cleaning media for sulfur dioxide, are progressively used by shipping companies to comply with emissions regulations. Little is known about the chemical composition of the scrubber effluent and its ecological consequences for marine life and biogeochemical processes. If scrubbers become a central tool for atmospheric pollution reduction from shipping, modeling, and experimental studies will be necessary to determine the ecological and biogeochemical effects of scrubber wash water discharge on the marine environment. Furthermore, attention must be paid to the regulation and enforcement of environmental protection standards concerning scrubber use. Close collaboration between natural scientists and social scientists is crucial for progress toward sustainable shipping and protection of the marine environment.

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

- University of Sheffield experts use machine learning to predict seasonal iceberg numbers for the first time - Low number of icebergs forecast to reach north-west Atlantic shipping regions in 2020 - figure less than half that recorded last year - International Ice Patrol will use new forecast to inform resource use for producing weekly iceberg forecasts for shipping industry

Assessments of ship-strike risk for large whales typically use a single year of ship traffic data and averaged predictions of species distributions. Consequently, they do not account for variability in ship traffic or species distributions. Variability could reduce the effectiveness of static management measures designed to mitigate ship-strike risk. We explore the consequences of interannual variability on ship-strike risk using multiple years of both ship traffic data and predicted fin, humpback, and blue whale distributions off California. Specifically, risk was estimated in four regions that are important for ship-strike risk management. We estimated risk by multiplying the predicted number of whales by the distance traveled by ships. To overcome the temporal mismatch between the available ship traffic and whale data, we classified the ship traffic data into nearshore and offshore traffic scenarios using the percentage of ship traffic traveling more than 24 nmi from the mainland coast, which was the boundary of a clean fuel rule implemented in 2009 that altered ship traffic patterns. We found that risk for fin and humpback whale populations off California increased as these species recovered from whaling. We also found that broad-scale, northward shifts in blue whale distributions throughout the North Pacific, likely in response to changes in oceanographic conditions, were associated with increased ship-strike risk off northern California. The magnitude of ship-strike risk for fin, humpback, and blue whales was influenced by the ship traffic scenarios. Interannual variability in predicted whale distributions also influenced the magnitude of ship-strike risk, but generally did not change whether the nearshore or offshore traffic scenario had higher risk. The consistency in the highest risk from the traffic scenarios likely occurred because areas containing the highest predicted number of whales were generally the same across years. The consistency in risk from th

The inland waters around southern Vancouver Island and northern Washington State, known as the Salish Sea, host critical habitat for endangered southern resident killer whales (SRKW). This is, however, a highly traversed area, with approaches to industrial ports and coastal cities, international shipping lanes, ferry routes, and considerable recreational vessel traffic. Vessel noise is a key threat to SRKW prosperity, and so conservation measures directed to mitigate its effects have been explored annually since 2017. Here, we describe trials undertaken in 2020, which included spatially limited slowdown zones, exclusion areas as Interim whale Sanctuary Zones (ISZs), and a lateral displacement of tug transits to increase the distance between their route and SRKW foraging areas. To assess each of the measures we first considered the level of mariner participation using data from the Automated Identification Systems (AIS), mandatory for commercial vessels. Knowing this, the changes in soundscape were examined, focused on impacts on broadband (10 Hz to 100 kHz) ambient noise and the frequencies used by SRKW for communication (500 Hz to 15 kHz) and echolocation (15 to 100 kHz). A control period of two-months prior to trial initiation was used to quantify the changes. High levels (> 80%) of compliance were found for each measure, except ISZs, where observance was low. Median reduction in speeds ranged from 0.2-3.5 knots. Resulting sound reductions were most notable in the lower frequencies, although reductions were also recorded in SRKW pertinent ranges. Tug displacement also reduced ambient noise in these frequencies, despite making up a small portion of the overall traffic. The management trials were effective in reducing potential impacts singularly and in concert. Greater awareness and stakeholder engagement may increase compliance and, therefore, the efficacy of measures in the future.

The collection and distribution network of ports is the main cause of carbon emissions. The carbon peak is a basic policy in China, and the subsidy policy is one of the common measures used by the government to incentivize carbon reduction. We analyzed the transportation methods and the flow direction of a port and proposed a carbon emission calculation method based on emission factors. Based on the transportation time and the cost, a generalized transportation utility function was constructed, and the logit model was used to analyze the impacts of subsidy policies on transportation, thus calculating the effects of the subsidies on carbon reduction. We used Guangzhou Port as a case study, and calculated the carbon reduction effects in six different subsidy policy scenarios and concluded that the absolute carbon reduction value was proportional to the subsidy intensity. In addition, we constructed a subsidy carbon reduction efficiency index and found that the Guangzhou Port collection and distribution network had higher subsidy carbon reduction efficiency in low-subsidy scenarios. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted on the subsidy parameters, and scenario 8 was found to have the highest subsidy carbon reduction efficiency. This achievement can provide decision support for the carbon emission strategy of the port collection and distribution network.