VIIRS reveals illegal fishing in the South China Sea
Simularity no longer runs the South China Sea Rapid Alert service. The reports published through it remain available here as an archive.
Asiatic squid vessels are constructed from marine steel, usually weigh between 800-1000 gross tons, and are outfitted with automated jiggers that use up to 150 incandescent lamps to attract squid to the surface. Credit: Simon Ager
According to Global Fishing Watch, “each night, its nighttime surveillance system is detecting 10,000 to 20,000 boats, or 85 percent of total vessels, that aren’t transmitting location signals.” Ships that turn off their location signals are likely to be doing illicit activity, and are referred to as “dark vessels” because they do not appear in the standard global ship tracking system. The satellite data that can detect lights at night is called Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, or VIIRS, and is supplied by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite launched in 2011.
Simularity’s new South China Sea monitoring service is using VIIRS, among a host of other satellite and Artificial Intelligence technologies, to monitor activity both on land and sea. The monitoring service is free. You’ll be notified of new reports as they are published. Sign up here, and don’t miss a report!
Please read more about Global Fishing Watch’s new VIIRS maps here: https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/oceans/articles/2018/06/11/new-technology-is-lighting-up-dark-fishing-fleets