Search Results (389)

Protecting threatened elasmobranch species despite limited data on their distribution and abundance is a critical challenge, particularly in the context of increasing human impacts on marine ecosystems. In the northeastern Atlantic, species such as the leafscale gulper shark, Portuguese dogfish, spurdog, and spotted ray are facing pressures from overfishing, bycatch, habitat degradation, and climate change. The OSPAR Commission has listed these species as threatened and/or declining and aims to protect them by reliably identifying suitable habitats and integrating these areas into Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). In this study, we present a spatial modelling framework using regression-based approaches to identify suitable habitats for these four species. Results show that suitable habitats of the spotted ray (25.8%) and spurdog (18.8%) are relatively well represented within existing MPAs, while those of the deep-water sharks are underrepresented (6.0% for leafscale gulper shark, and 6.8% for Portuguese dogfish). Our findings highlight the need for additional MPAs in deep-sea continental slope areas, particularly west and northwest of Scotland and Ireland. Such expansions would support OSPAR’s goal to protect 30% of its maritime area by 2030 and could benefit broader deep-sea biodiversity, including other vulnerable demersal species and benthic communities. Full article

The adoption of technological innovations in the maritime industry is of interest to business, policy, and academic communities. In the last group, this interest has translated into the publication of a large but scattered literature, making it difficult to compare findings and identify the dynamics, structures, and patterns that might inform future research. A comprehensive review of past research on this topic might help achieve this. To date, no such review has been carried out, which is an important gap in the literature that this paper contributes to bridging. Two bibliometric review techniques—co-citation analysis of cited references and bibliographic coupling of documents—are applied to 171 journal articles published between 1999 and February 2025 to answer the following questions: 1. What is the knowledge base of this literature? 2. What are the recent research trends (research fronts) in this literature? The analysis reveals that research on “shore power” dominates both the knowledge base and research fronts. Other key research themes centre on “autonomous shipping”, “blockchain”, and “alternative fuels”. Based on these results, implications for future research are drawn. Full article

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between maritime trade and cultural convergence between China and Saudi Arabia, with a particular focus on the roles of creative goods and information and communication technology (ICT) exports as proxies for sociocultural integration. Utilizing quarterly data from 2012 to 2021, the analysis employs the Toda–Yamamoto Granger causality approach within a Vector Autoregression (VAR) framework. This methodology offers a robust means of testing causality without requiring data stationarity or cointegration, thereby reducing estimation bias and enhancing applicability to real-world economic data. The empirical model examines causal interactions among maritime trade, creative goods exports, ICT exports, and population, the latter serving as a control variable to account for demographic scale effects on trade dynamics. The results indicate statistically significant bidirectional causality between maritime trade and both creative goods and ICT exports, suggesting a reciprocal reinforcement between trade and cultural–technological exchange. In contrast, the relationship between maritime trade and population is found to be unidirectional. These findings underscore the strategic importance of cultural and technological flows in shaping maritime trade patterns. Furthermore, the study contextualizes its results within broader policy initiatives, notably China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, both of which aim to promote mutual economic diversification and regional integration. The study contributes to the literature on international trade and cultural economics by demonstrating how cultural convergence can serve as a catalyst for strengthening bilateral trade relations. Policy implications include the promotion of cultural and technological collaboration, investment in maritime infrastructure, and the incorporation of cultural dimensions into trade policy formulation. Full article

This study addresses the performance of digital platforms in enhancing ocean governance by improving communication and collaboration among stakeholders. It analyses several platforms based on their collaborative initiatives, digital tools, and ability to function as networks of knowledge. The findings show that these platforms bridge gaps between regional, national, and non-governmental organisations, promoting informed decision making. Their online presence enhances transparency and engagement, especially post-COVID-19. This study highlights the need for hybrid platforms combining informative and interactive elements to better serve both experts and the public. From this analysis, some recommendations are drawn to provide rules and design for the cooperation and co-design of a platform to foster better communication, collaboration, and sustainable ocean management practices. Full article

Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASSs) are expected to become vital participants in future maritime commerce and ocean development activities. This paper investigates a channel capacity-based scheme for estimating the persistence of ship-to-ship communication links in MASS communication scenarios. Specifically, this study presents a relative motion model for nodes within the network and estimates link persistence based on the dynamic characteristics of the links. Additionally, transmission modes tailored to maritime communication scenarios are proposed to optimize link capacity and reduce interference. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can accurately estimate the duration and capacity of the links, thereby achieving higher network capacity. When used as a metric for routing protocols, the proposed link-persistence measure outperforms traditional metrics in terms of packet loss ratio, end-to-end delay, and throughput. Comparisons with other mobility models show that the proposed mobility model offers greater accuracy and reliability in describing the relative mobility of nodes. Full article

Various activities, whether economic, social, or environmental, exert pressure on a coastal area. The extent of economic activities taking place in coastal regions is continuously increasing, particularly in tourism, maritime transport, port operations, and fisheries and aquaculture. Therefore, the decision to establish activities in a coastal area is complex and requires careful consideration by all stakeholders who use this space, which is potentially one of the most important natural resources for the development of any coastal country. This research is focused on assessing the justification for establishing economic activities in a coastal area, taking into account the interconnection of spatial, safety, environmental, and social factors. Therefore, three possible scenarios have been proposed: the location of the communal port, the location of the nautical port-marina, and the location of the marine entertainment and recreation centre. The goal was to develop a model that would enable the objective assessment and selection of the most suitable activity that would simultaneously benefit society and have the least harmful impact on the environment. Therefore, a multi-criteria analysis was conducted using the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method. The decision-making process was based on the expert validation of criteria, sub-criteria, and alternatives. An analytical tool called Expert Choice was used to synthesise the results and select the optimal activity. The sensitivity analysis confirmed the stability and reliability of the obtained results, with the AHP method proving to be an effective tool in structuring the decision-making process regarding the establishment of activities in the coastal area. Based on the results of the multi-criteria assessment, planning the establishment of activities is an important precondition for the long-term and sustainable development of coastal activities in an area. Full article

The maritime domain is experiencing significant transformation, driven by the integration of autonomous technologies. Autonomous ships and smart maritime systems depend on the sophisticated interplay of artificial intelligence, sensor infrastructures, and communication protocols to achieve safe, reliable, and efficient operations. Central to this evolution is the imperative for seamless interoperability among agents operating within heterogeneous maritime environments. Semantic interoperability, which ensures that information is interpreted and exchanged consistently and meaningfully across systems, emerges as a critical enabler of coordinated multi-agent cooperation. This paper explores the role of semantic interoperability in the coordination of multi-agent systems, the challenges involved, and the technological frameworks that facilitate its implementation. Full article

The formation control technology of the multi-ASV (autonomous surface vehicle) system is one of the key technologies required for performing maritime missions. In this paper, a leaderless formation controller is proposed, where the issues of sampled communication and data transmission delays in formation are taken into consideration. By introducing the desired displacements and the implicit formation center (IFC), the control goal of the leaderless formation is explicitly defined. Through the application of a state-space transformation, the achievement of the leaderless formation is shown to be equivalent to the stabilization of the transformed subsystem. The implicit formation center of the leaderless framework is derived, which facilitates the description and analysis of formation movements. The stability of the system is rigorously analyzed by using the Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional. Furthermore, an $H_{\infty }$ performance controller is designed to evaluate the tolerance of the leaderless formation against marine environmental disturbances. Numerical simulations with 10 ASVs under sampled communication and transmission delay demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller, achieving an $H_{\infty }$ performance bound $\gamma$ of 10. Full article

Coastal and maritime regions and their entities face accelerated degradation due to the combined effects of environmental stressors and anthropogenic activities. Coastal degradation can be identified, visualized and estimated through periodic monitoring over a region of interest using earth observation, climate, meteorological, seasonal, waves, sea level rising, and other ocean- and maritime-related datasets. Usually, these datasets are provided through different sources, in different structures or data types; in many cases, a complete dataset can be large in size and needs some kind of preprocessing (information filtering) before use in the intended application. Recently, the term data cube introduced in the scientific community and frameworks like Google Earth Engine and Open Data Cubes have emerged as a solution to earth observation data harmonization, federation, and exchange framework; however, these sources either completely lack the ability to process climate, meteorological, waves, sea lever rising, etc., data from open sources, like CORDEX and WCRP, or preprocessing is required. This study describes and utilizes the Ocean-DC framework for modular earth observation and other data types to resolve major big data challenges. Compared to the already existing approaches, the Ocean-DC framework harmonizes several types of data and generates ready-to-use data cubes products, which can be merged together to produce high-dimensionality visualization products. To prove the efficiency of the Ocean-DC framework, a case study at Crete Island, emphasizing the Port of Heraklion, demonstrates the practical utility by revealing degradation trends via time-series analysis of several related remote sensing indices calculated using the Ocean-DC framework. The results show a significant reduction in processing time (up to 89%) compared to traditional remote sensing approaches and optimized data storage management, proving its value as a scalable solution for environmental resilience, highlighting its potential use in early warning systems and decision support systems for sustainable coastal infrastructure management. Full article

With the advancement of sixth-generation (6G) wireless communication technology, new demands have been placed on maritime communications. In maritime environments, factors such as evaporation ducts and sea waves significantly impact signal transmission. Moreover, in multi-user communication scenarios, interactions between different users introduce additional complexities. This paper proposes a novel channel model for maritime unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to multi-unmanned surface vehicle (USV) communications, which incorporates massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) antennas at both the transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx), while also accounting for the effects of evaporation ducts and sea waves on the channel. For the USV-single-user maritime model, the temporal auto-correlation function (ACF) and spatial cross-correlation function (CCF) are analyzed. For the UAV-to-multi-user channel model, key channel characteristics such as channel matrix collinearity (CMC) and channel capacity are examined. Finally, the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed model are validated through a comparison between the measured and simulated data under a single-link environment. Meanwhile, a comparison between the CMC obtained from the proposed model and that derived from Ray-Tracing further verifies the model’s accuracy in multi-link environments. This model provides essential theoretical guidance for future 6G maritime communication systems. Full article

The global shipping industry is evolving towards deep integration of digital transformation, intelligent upgrading, and green development. Meanwhile, recent geopolitical shifts have introduced heightened uncertainties into international shipping, compounding the challenges and escalating the demands for weather routing services for ocean-going ships. This paper provides a systematic review and expert perspective on China’s current status and key challenges in ocean-going weather routing services. Based on operational insights from China’s national meteorological service synthesized with a review of current trends and the literature, it further explores the future development of China’s ocean-going weather routing services and technologies from multiple dimensions: enhancing maritime weather observation capabilities, developing advanced weather routing service models, upgrading autonomous and controllable global satellite communication systems, promoting intelligent navigation technologies to facilitate shipping’s low-carbon transition, and expanding meteorological support capabilities for Arctic shipping routes. The analysis identifies critical gaps and proposes strategic directions, offering a unique contribution to understanding the trajectory of weather routing services within China’s specific national context from the perspective of its primary national service provider. Full article

A new integrated multi-user monitoring system for Brazilian Jurisdictional Waters (BJW), developed by Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) with participation from leading universities and research centers in Brazil, proposes a national approach to address oil spills in the South Atlantic. The system incorporates a range of technologies, such as satellite data, AI algorithms, autonomous sensors, and high-resolution modeling, to detect and respond to oil spills and maritime threats. This initiative not only aims to strengthen Brazil’s readiness to address the oil spills but also contribute to the protection of BJW resources and ecosystems. This opinion paper presents third-party viewpoints on SisMOM, analyzing both the positive and negative aspects of the project. It also explores some expectations for SisMOM, including some main and alternative methodologies. This article only reflects the authors’ perspectives, interpretations, points of view, opinions, and discussions about SisMOM’s propositions. This paper does NOT represent an official communication of the program, nor its methodologies and developments. Full article

The present study explores residents’ perceptions of Stintino (Sardinia, Italy) as a tourist destination. The municipality is predominantly known for La Pelosa beach, widely regarded as one of the most attractive coastal sites in Europe. However, its popularity has raised critical issues related to carrying capacity and seasonal overcrowding, contributing to a tourism model centered almost exclusively on beach-related activities. This study aims to investigate how locals conceptualize their place beyond the dominant seaside narrative, particularly considering Stintino’s identity as a former fishing village with a strong maritime tradition. As part of Italy’s designated inner areas, Stintino also embodies a deep-rooted connection to cultural heritage, further reinforcing the need for its preservation. Adopting a photovoice-based participatory visual methodology, this study engaged 15 local stakeholders from key sectors (hospitality, fishing tourism, retail, gastronomy, and cultural institutions) who produced and discussed photographic representations of their lived experience of the territory. The visual material was thematically analyzed using a conceptual framework informed by theories of place perception and social representations. The findings suggested a multifaceted territorial storytelling rooted in local heritage, symbolic spaces, and everyday practices. Tourism governance strategies could incorporate community-based approaches, such as participatory mapping and inclusive narrative development, to foster more sustainable and place-sensitive promotion models. Full article

A maritime mobile ad hoc network (M-MANET) is an essential part of the maritime communication network and plays a key role in many maritime scenarios. However, the topology of M-MANET dynamically changes with the movement of vessels, which leads to unstable link states and poses the risk of data transmission interruption. In this paper, a mobility model for small unmanned surface vessels based on smooth Gaussian semi-Markovian and a trajectory prediction method for large vessels based on a bi-directional long short-term memory network are proposed to better simulate the nodes’ movement in the M-MANET. Then, a link available based routing metric is proposed for M-MANET scenarios, which incorporates factors of mobility model and vessel trajectory. Experiments demonstrate that compared with the benchmark methods, the proposed mobility model depicts the movement characteristics of vessels more accurately, the proposed trajectory prediction method achieves higher prediction accuracy and stability, the proposed routing metric scheme has a reduction of 14.59% in end-to-end delay, a 1.54% increase in packet delivery fraction, and a 4.43% increase in network throughput on average. Full article

Since the early 14th century, the Mediterranean coasts of the Crown of Aragon had mechanisms in place to alert populations of incoming threats from the sea. In addition to maritime surveillance systems strategically positioned at elevated vantage points, any information reaching the coast that posed a threat to the safety of the population or trade was swiftly relayed along the shoreline, ensuring that coastal communities could prepare and defend themselves. This information, preserved in the correspondence of coastal city authorities, serves today as a primary source not only for reconstructing maritime threats in the late Middle Ages but also for assessing the role of urban leaders in managing defence. This article explores both aspects. By analysing maritime alerts either received in the city of Barcelona or disseminated from it during the first half of the 15th century, this study examines the main threats to the Catalan coastline while emphasizing the central role of cities in managing the alert system. Full article