Assessing Ship Movements Using Volunteered Geographic Information

Master of Arts (M.A.), Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, UC-Santa Barbara, December 2012

Graduate committee: S. Gaines, R. Warner, K. Janowicz

Shaun Walbridge
Now a Python Product Engineer at Esri
swalbridge-at-esri.com | Esri Github

Abstract.
Shipping, the ocean transportation of people and goods, moves most world trade, and understanding its effects is required to assess human use of the oceans. This work examines the shipping trade by combining global observations of ship location with vessel identification records, and interpreting the results in an ecological context. By incorporating quality checking methods with volunteered geographic information, I provide a spatially resolved high resolution dataset which links individual vessels with their movement patterns and attributes. This contributes knowledge on the state and distribution of shipping, and identifies areas where mitigation of impacts are achievable.

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