iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

🌊 I’m really enjoying the One Ocean Science Congress in Nice, France this week, in the lead-up to the UN Ocean Conference next week. If you’re in Nice and interested in using Global Fishing Watch data or tools, feel free to reach out!

lnkd.in

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Just under one month left to apply for a grant through the Open Ocean Research Grant Program!

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

🌊 Just launched: the Open Ocean Research Grant Program! We’re offering up to $10k for individuals and $20k for teams using our data to tackle key ocean research questions. Independent researchers & small teams welcome. 🔗 Apply: bit.ly/open-ocean-r... #OceanScience #Fisheries #ResearchFunding

bit.ly

Open Ocean Research Grants Program

This research grant program aims to enhance ocean governance by publicly sharing data on human activity at sea to grow our community of practice and expand and improve Global Fishing Watch datasets.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

A new paper said our fishing algorithm overestimates effort! academic.oup.com/icesjms/arti... However, it is based on how you interpret our algorithm. I think this paper interprets our algorithm incorrectly, but it may be our fault that we did not better communicate how to use our algorithm.

academic.oup.com

Bias in Global Fishing Watch AIS data analyses results in overestimate of Northeast Atlantic pelagic fishing impact

Abstract. The ability to pinpoint fishing activity in the world’s oceans has greatly improved over the past decades, a period in which both satellite-based

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

That's a great question, and one I think we can probably answer in the next year or so. I think the answers are "a meaningful amount" and "yes."

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

You can also download the CSVs here: globalfishingwatch.org/data-download/

globalfishingwatch.org

Data Download Portal

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Here is the BigQuery query to get this public data: SELECT date_diff(date, "2012-01-01", day) days, floor(cell_ll_lat*4) lat_index, sum(fishing_hours) fishing_hours FROM `global-fishing-watch.fishing_effort_v3.fleet_daily_100_v3` where fishing_hours > 0 group by days, lat_index

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

We have just updated our public fishing activity data. You can now download data for 2012-2024! Learn more: globalfishingwatch.org/insights/ask... Here is fishing effort by latitude and day, across 12 years.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Currently on a flight to Tokyo -- amazed to have wifi over the middle of the Pacific (even if it is slow). Looking forward to meetings in Tokyo, then Taiwan, then Korea, over the next eight days. Here's an image of fishing from AIS data in the region.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

This is all vessels. And using imagery (sar or optical) up there is going to be horribly difficult because the density of vessels is low and the density of icebergs is high.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

At some point I will get around to making this for more years than just 2019.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Yeah, that’s didn’t realize that either until I made the map. You can also see how critical those rivers in northern Russia must be for transportation—but only for half the year!

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

One year of vessel traffic in the Arctic, animated with sea ice. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw_f...

youtube.com

arctic 2019 Apple Devices HD Best Quality

YouTube video by David Kroodsma

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Our paper in Annual Review of Marine Science, "Improving Ocean Management Using Insights from Space," is now open access: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

annualreviews.org

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

It has been almost three and a half years since Caldor, and given the three "mild" fire seasons since then, it's amazing how quickly I have forgotten about the risk posed by the forests behind my neighborhood. LA is reminding me.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Seeing friends and colleagues abandon their homes and flee the smoke and fire is bringing back painful memories of when we had to evacuate for the Caldor fire in 2021. It feels like no one is safe. Thinking of everyone in LA.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

And because very extra 0.1 degree of warming is worse than the one before it, it is actually more important, not less.

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

We are currently trying to come up with a name for this new map projection. Any suggestions? Shown is vessel activity from AIS.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

If you follow us at Global Fishing Watch, be prepared to start seeing more maps with this projection :-). It is conceptually like Spilhaus, but with less distortion along the global coastline.

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Paul Woods @paulwoods.io · 07/01/2025

We are starting interviews for our new Senior Scientist, Head of Research Impact role. We have 105 candidates on the recruiting "short list", so this might take a while😅. Applications close tomorrow, so share if you know someone we should be talking to. job-boards.greenhouse.io/globalfishin...

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Paul Woods @paulwoods.io · 07/01/2025

Two weeks ago I said "hey we should use this crazy new map projection" and today there is python code! Showing here global vessel presence density (from AIS) using the spilhaus projection in a single view where you can see the whole ocean.

Global vessel presence map using Spilhaus projection

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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 06/01/2025

I have a new analysis over at The Climate Brink exploring how rates of warming have changed over the past century. Post-1970, GHGs (CO2, CH4, etc.) would have led to just under 0.2C per decade, but falling aerosols (SO2) have increased that rate to 0.25C. www.theclimatebrink....

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Reposted by David Kroodsma

Paul Woods @paulwoods.io · 17/12/2024

Very happy with the work we are doing with @odihq.bsky.social to develop a robust data ethics practice to complement our use of AI, especially as we evolve to detecting smaller and smaller vessels. Read more in the ODI blog

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Embedding data ethics at Global Fishing Watch

Learn more about our work with Global Fishing Watch.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

With South Asia (which might be more than Europe once we include vessels without AIS) being at the bottom.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

I think I like having the two areas of most intense vessel traffic -- Europe and East Asia -- on opposite sides of the map.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

And here's elastic-2 with AIS data: bsky.app/profile/tim....

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Do you have the time of day of this video?

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

It is because of different regulations and also different abundances of fish!

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Here you go: bsky.app/profile/davi...

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

That said, equal earth preserves area much better. But I really like the focus on the global coastline and ocean provided by elastic-2. Also, when I say "we made the maps," I mean that @tim.hochberg.io made/found the maps and we commented on them.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Previous map is all vessel activity from AIS-the map is most distorted in the area with the most traffic! We looked around, and found the elastic-2 projection github.com/jkunimune/el..., which can give a similar view as Spilhaus, but doesn't distort the coastlines quite as much (except Australia).

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

I like this projection not because of how it shows the ocean, but rather because it shows the global coastline as if it were a mostly-continuous line. Coastal waters are where the vast majority of human activity in the ocean is. However Spilhaus distorts the coastline a lot in some regions.

Vessel traffic from AIS in Spilhaus projection

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Today at Global Fishing Watch, on Slack, we are discussing the best map projections for showing off the ocean (this is partially us procrastinating). Our default is an equal earth projection. But some argue we should use the Spilhaus projection instead, which is how "fish see the world."

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Tim @tim.hochberg.io · 02/01/2025

@paulwoods.io @davidkroodsma.bsky.social I played around with this over break and managed to map vessel presence in the Spilhaus projection. It really shows how little vessel traffic the southern oceans have. It's also a good candidate for a black light poster with this color scheme.

Map of the world's oceans in the Spilhaus projection showing vessel presence according to AIS between 2017 and 2021. This projection has Antartica in the middle and most of the world's coastlines are projected onto the edges. The areas around Antartica and near the north pole are mostly empty, but the rest of the map has many vessel tracks.

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Yeah -- I looked into this recently. There isn't a projection ready-to-go from cartopy/proj, but I did find this repo: github.com/rtlemos/spil...

github.com

GitHub - rtlemos/spilhaus: Project your maritime dataset onto the World Ocean.

Project your maritime dataset onto the World Ocean. - rtlemos/spilhaus

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

I think it depends on the context. Similarly, I often don’t like a comma in sentences that start with “Here,” but almost all academic writing uses that comma. “Here we show that…” feels so much more direct/less ponderous/less pretentious than “Here, we show that…”

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

That's a good idea -- unfortunately not straightforward using cartopy and Global Fishing Watch's pyseas library. However, I can give you Stereographic:

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Yes -- because fishing regulations (and who is licensed to fish there) are different inside Exclusive Economic Zones (which extend 200 nautical miles from shore) than on the high seas, you get those "holes" in the map.

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

I actually started drafts of replies with such zoomed in views, and then had to get back to responding to slack messages. They are coming soon :-)

David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

One of my resolutions for 2025 will be to share more of the maps we make at Global Fishing Watch. Here is all vessel traffic from AIS across five years. And if you want a 50 megabyte file of this image where you can zoom in to really high resolution, go here: drive.google.com/file/d/1RgBQ...

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David Kroodsma @davidkroodsma.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

5) and finally, a new role on my team: Senior Scientist, Head of Research Impact. If this work excites you, and you want to lead efforts to drive impact with it, apply here: job-boards.greenhouse.io/globalfishin...

job-boards.greenhouse.io

Senior Scientist, Head of Research Impact

Canada; United States; Argentina; Brazil; Chile; Colombia; Costa Rica; Mexico; Panama; France; Germany; Ireland; Italy; Spain; United Kingdom; Gabon; Ghana; Kenya; Senegal; Philippines; Sri Lanka; Tai...