GeoGarage blog

Monday, September 3, 2018

Scallop wars: British and French fishermen clash on high seas

British and French fishing boats ram each other in the Channel in a long-running dispute over the rights to shellfish beds. Stones and smoke bombs were also thrown.

UK boats are legally allowed to fish for scallops in the bay off Normandy all year round, but French vessels are restricted to certain months to allow stocks to replenish.

Fishing groups are calling for a new deal to be brokered between the two nations over when and where scallops can be collected.

The conflict has remained unresolved for 15 years.

From CNN by James Masters

French and British fishermen clashed in the English Channel Tuesday in the latest installment of the long-running "scallop war."
Video of the incident broadcast by France 3 Normandie showed smoke bombs and rocks being thrown at British crews, while a number of boats appeared to be rammed.

The five British boats, greatly outnumbered by an estimated 35 French vessels, were chased from the scallop-rich Baie de Seine area off Normandy, maritime official Ingrid Parot told AFP.
"We're trying to push the English out because if we allow them to carry on they'll pillage the area," French fisherman Anthony Quesnel says in the video.
"We have quotas, we have hours and they have nothing, no quotas, seven days out of seven they fill their boats. They come, they dredge and they fill their vessel and they go home. They work a month earlier than us and they leave us the crumbs," he added.

Baie de Seine with the GeoGarage platform (SHOM nautical chart)

Scallops fishing areas (source : CRPMN)

The skirmish took place 12 nautical miles off the Normandy coast where British crews are allowed to fish all year round, while their French counterparts are restricted to a shorter harvesting season from October 1 to May 15.
"I condemn the violence on both sides though the English did have much bigger boats than we did," Normandy fishing chief Dimitri Rogoff told CNN.
"The French were just trying to push them up north. Yes, legally they're (the British) allowed to be there but we contest this right. There's a Common Fisheries Policy and on the French side we have quotas but for the English it's open bar!"

The French feel British fishermen are attempting to deplete stocks before the start of the harvesting season.
The problem has grown worse over the past 15 years as British boats have increased their catches considerably.
While the two sides have reached agreements over the past five years, the French blocked a deal this year, he added.

There is also frustration from French fishermen that the British use bigger trawlers, some of which are double the size of their French counterparts and also have the ability to freeze scallops on board.
"We didn't sign the annual agreement because we want to change certain aspects of it and the English won't budge, which is a shame," Rogoff said.
"We want better management of those fishing zones. We don't start fishing until the 1st of October and they arrived on the 22nd of August. We just want everyone to start fishing at the same time."

A Scottish scallop dredger, right, docked at Shoreham, England, on Wednesday, a day after clashes with French fishermen off France’s northern coast.

Britain's National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations has urged calm and said any differences should be resolved through negotiation.
"We have raised the matter with the British government and asked for protection for our vessels, which are fishing legitimately," Chief Executive Barrie Deas told the BBC.
"The deeper issues behind the clashes should be settled by talking around the table, not on the high seas where people could be hurt."

Catherine Paul from the French Regional Committee of Fishermen told CNN that her organization had "tried to calm the fishermen and to have talks with the English for better management of the scallops."

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "We are aware of reports of aggression directed towards UK fishing vessels in an area of the English Channel not under UK control.
These vessels were operating in an area they are legally entitled to fish.
"The safety of the UK fleet is our highest priority, and we will continue to monitor the presence and activities of vessels in the area. We are in contact with industry and the French administration to encourage meaningful dialogue and prevent further incidents from occurring."

Links :

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Mediterranean: a sea under surveillance

The Mediterranean Sea concentrates many challenges: tourism, transport, fishing, biodiversity. Considerable efforts have been made over the past 30 years to preserve it.

Scientists monitor the state of health of the Mediterranean Sea through biological monitoring of its richest and most sensitive ecosystems such as posidonia meadows and coralligenous reefs, listening to underwater sounds and bottom mapping.

Through the magnificent underwater images of Roberto Rinaldi and Laurent Ballesta, you will dive into the heart of the Mediterranean Sea and its biodiversity to better understand why/how it is monitored.

You will also discover the latest improvement actions implemented and their results.

They are professional fishermen, scientists or coastal managers, and they share their expertise on global warming in the Mediterranean...

Saturday, September 1, 2018

Temperature anomalies by country 1880-2017

Temperature Anomalies by Country 1880-2017 based on NASA GISTEMP data.
courtesy of Antti Lipponen

This graph from @dmidk and @ZLabe shows the monthly average sea ice extent

in Northern hemisphere since 1979, as observed by @eumetsat
courtesy of WMO

Links :

Gizmodo : A New Visualization Turns Global Warming Into Pop Art
NYTimes : How-much-hotter-is-your-hometown

Friday, August 31, 2018

Paper is past: Digital charts on the horizon for NOAA

Juneau AK with the GeoGarage platform

From JuneauEmpire by Kevin Gullufsen

Automated vessels, digital dependence put paper charts in rearview, agency says at Juneau meetings

The tan and blue paper nautical charts that line wheelhouses and galleys on Alaska ships will soon be a relic of the past.

In an effort to increase automation and adapt to digital navigation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is rebuilding its chart products for digital use, said Rear Admiral Shep Smith, Director of the Office of Coast Survey.
The effort will take about 10 years and allow for more seamless navigation, and a larger level of detail, Smith said.
“The paper charts that we all grew up with and know and love were the traditional way of capturing the survey information and making it actionable for mariners,” Smith explained.

Not so anymore.
The move isn’t just a matter of digitizing its paper charts.
NOAA and its partners already do that.
Many global positioning systems used on vessels simply layer a ship’s GPS positioning on top of NOAA’s charts.

The Office of Coast Survey will have to totally revamp how it builds charts to properly adapt them for digital and automated uses.
“We’re basically starting over and redesigning a suite of nautical charts that is optimized and designed from the ground up to be used digitally. It’s not intended to be used on paper,” Smith said.

A closer look at Thomas Jefferson‘s project area highlights its navigational characteristics.

see NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson completes 2018 survey work in the Approaches to Houston-Galveston

Right now, NOAA produces new editions to nautical charts periodically.
There are over 1,000 of these charts, each detailing a certain area at a certain scale.
Each chart has an edition date and uses certain contour lines for water depth — similar to the contour lines used on land maps to show the height of a mountain at a certain position, for instance.
But those lines — and other features of the paper charts — are inconsistent, a function of the charts being designed as paper products.
The first contour line on one nautical map may indicate a water depth of 10 fathoms (60 feet).
On another chart, the first contour line might indicate a depth of 30 fathoms (180 feet).

There are discrepancies in scale, too. NOAA uses over 100 different scales in paper charts of U.S. waters.
At each different scale, there’s a difference in the level of detail.
When moving from open water, traveling across the Gulf of Alaska, for instance, a mariner might use a larger scale chart — they don’t need the level of detail when traveling open waters.
When a ship approaches an anchorage, where knowing the exact location of a rock in a small area becomes important, they might switch to a chart with a smaller scale.

Bathymetric data collected by Rainier in Tracy Arm Fjord.

see NOAA Ship Rainier completes hydrographic surveys in Southeast Alaska

With something like Google Earth, the transition between the two scales is seamless.
Just zoom in and greater levels of detail reveal themselves.
That’s one of the hopes of the new system, Smith said.
“If you use the nautical charts that we have now, derived from the paper in the digital format, there are discontinuities … they don’t line up,” Smith said.
“There’s all these artifacts of the fact that they’re derived from paper.”

The redesign is intended to make automated and unmanned vessel navigation easier.
Smith used the example of cruise ships.
(Five cruise ships were in Juneau on Wednesday when Smith spoke to the Empire about the project at a meeting of the Hydrographic Services Review Panel.)

Cruise ship captains have to know their vessel’s exact location in relation to the shore to be sure they’re discharging waste in a legal area.
But discharge regulations aren’t delineated on a map.
Instead, they’re written down and enforced by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
Right now, cruise ships take DEC’s written regulations and translate them into action plans for their engineers to be able to avoid dumping waste too close to shore.
With NOAA’s digital built charts, the system could be more foolproof.
“In an automated world, the ship itself and the ship’s systems could know whether it was in a discharge zone or what kind of discharge regime it’s in,” Smith said.

As is happening on terrestrial highways, driverless technology may soon take to ocean shipping lanes. Smith said Alaska could see an increase in unmanned — or less-manned — shipping in coming years.
Those vessels will need purpose-built charts to move about safely, Smith said.
The Office of Coast Survey is working with a crew from the University of New Hampshire to make unmanned survey vessels aware of where they’re at in the ocean.
“Within the lifespan of the charts that we’re beginning to make now, there will be unmanned ships … The algorithms that would control an unmanned ship would have to interact with the chart,” Smith said.

Links :

NOAA : As sea levels rise, more data needed, experts say / NOAA researches autonomous survey system in the Arctic / NOAA researches autonomous survey system in the Arctic / NOAA surveys the unsurveyed, leading the way in the U.S. Arctic

Galileo: Brexit funds released for sat-nav study

From BBC by Jonathan Amos

UK ministers are setting aside £92m to study the feasibility of building a sovereign satellite-navigation system. (see Gov.uk press release)
The new network would be an alternative to the Europe Union's Galileo project, in which Britain looks set to lose key roles as a result of Brexit.
The UK Space Agency will lead the technical assessment.

Officials will engage British industry to spec a potential design, its engineering requirements, schedule and likely cost.
The first contracts for this study work could be issued as early as October.
The UKSA expects the assessment to take about a year and a half.
Ministers could then decide if they really want to proceed with a venture that will have a price tag in the billions.

Seeking a deal

London and Brussels are still negotiating Britain's future participation in Galileo.

The parties are currently in dispute over the UK's access, and industrial contribution, to the system's Public Regulated Service (PRS) beyond March of next year.
PRS is a special navigation and timing signal intended for use by government agencies, the armed forces and emergency responders. Expected to come online in 2020, it is designed to be available and robust even in times of crisis.

Brussels says London cannot immediately have access to PRS when the UK leaves the European bloc because it will become a foreign entity.
London says PRS is vital to its military and security interests and warns that if it cannot use and work on the signal then it will walk away from Galileo in its entirety.

The Prime Minister Theresa May, presently on a tour of Africa, told the BBC it was, "not an idle threat to achieve our negotiating objectives".
The UK did not want to be simply an "end user" and needed full access to Galileo if it was to continue to contribute to the system, she added.

UK firms have been integral to the development of Galileo

A project of the European Commission and the European Space Agency
24 satellites constitute a full system but it will have six spares in orbit also
26 spacecraft are in orbit today; the figure of 30 is likely to be reached in 2021
Original budget was 3bn euros but will now cost more than three times that
Works alongside the US GPS, Chinese Beidou and Russian Glonass systems
Promises eventual real-time positioning down to a metre or less

'Best of British'

The UK as an EU member state has so far invested £1.2bn in Galileo, helping to build the satellites, to operate them in orbit, and to define important aspects of the system's encryption, including for PRS itself.

"Due to the European Commission post-Brexit rules imposed on UK companies, Airbus Defence and Space Ltd was not able to compete for the Galileo work we had undertaken for over the last decade," Colin Paynter, MD of Airbus DS in the UK, said.
"We therefore very much welcome the UK Space Agency's announcement today which we believe will allow Airbus along with other affected UK companies to bring together an alliance of the Best of British to produce innovative solutions for a possible future UK navigation system."

Man quits job to spell out 'Stop Brexit' across Europe with GPS tracker

see The Telegraph

Analysis - Could the UK go it alone?
Few people doubt Britain is capable of developing its own satellite-navigation system.
But the task would not be straight-forward. Here are just four issues that will need to be addressed before ministers can sign off on such a major project:

COST:
The initial estimate given for a sovereign system when first mooted was put in the region of £3bn-5bn.
But major space infrastructure projects have a history of under-estimating complexities.
Both GPS and Galileo cost far more - and took much longer - to build than anyone expected.
In addition to the set-up cost, there are the annual running costs, which in the case of Galileo and GPS run into the hundreds of millions of euros/dollars.
A sat-nav system needs long-term commitment from successive governments.

BENEFIT:
Just the year-to-year financing for a sat-nav system would likely dwarf what the UK government currently spends on all other civil space activity - roughly £400m per year.
The question is whether investments elsewhere, in either the space or military sectors, would bring greater returns, says Leicester University space and international relations expert Bleddyn Bowen: "We could spend this £100m [feasibility money] doubling what the government is giving to develop launcher capability in the UK, which is only £50m - it could make a real difference. You could also spend that money buying some imagery satellites for the MoD, which would transform their capabilities overnight."

SKILLS:
Britain has a vibrant space sector.
It has many of the necessary skills and technologies to build its own sat-nav system, but it does not have them all. Many of the components for Galileo satellites, for example, have single suppliers in Europe.
If Britain cannot develop domestic supply chains for the parts it needs, there may be no alternative but to bring them in from the continent.
Spending the project's budget in the EU-27 may not be politically acceptable given the state of current relations on Galileo.

FREQUENCIES:
The UKSA says a British system would be compatible with America's GPS - and by extension with Galileo - because both these systems transmit their timing and navigation signals in the same part of the radio spectrum.
This simplifies receivers and allows manufacturers to produce equipment that works with all available systems.
This is the case for the chips in the latest smartphones, for instance.
But America and the EU had a huge row in 2003 over frequency compatibility and the potential for interference.
It was British engineers who eventually showed the two systems could very happily co-exist.
They would have to do the same again for a UK sovereign network.
Without international acceptance on the frequencies in use, no project could proceed.

Some analysts believe the most fruitful approach now for the UK would be to extend its space expertise and capabilities in areas not already covered by others - in space surveillance, or in secure space communications, for example.
This would make Britain an even more compelling partner for all manner of projects, including Galileo.
Alexandra Stickings from the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies said: "Working its way to a negotiated agreement on Galileo would allow the the UK to then focus its space budget and strategy to build UK capabilities and grow the things we're able to offer as an international partner."

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