The COVID-19 pandemic strongly affected global logistics and supply chains, and hence shipping activity. This challenge asks you to target the characterization of dynamic shipping activities as seen from space.
We offer an alternative for those who use maritime transport. Thanks to EO DASHBOARD data on air quality, we use NO2 as an indicator, in order to forecast its possible behavior for up to one year (June, 2022). With this, a web page was developed with awareness information and a section where these people can fill in information about their boat and according to our forecast, they will be shown a message advising them if it is favorable to make their exit from the port in the expected month and NO2 level. With the purpose of avoiding maritime traffic and reducing air pollution.
In order to find a solution to the challenge Ship Traffic and the Impact on Air Quality, a web page was developed with the objective of informing and advising the applicant of a ship, regarding maritime traffic and the control of NO2 and SO2 levels during the requested dates, based on statistical data extracted from the EO Dashboard page.
Currently 90% of world trade is conducted via ships, which demonstrates a large and constant daily merchant fleet in the world's oceans.
Maritime traffic, resulting from trade growth, generates an excess of toxic gases from fuel oils, which are a by-product of crude oil distillation residues. This component is the main type of hydrocarbon used as fuel in ships.
It has been proven that excessive emissions of these gases in the air are dangerous for the environment, the union of NO2 and SO2 with the atmosphere produces negative factors, such as acid rain and fractures in the ozone layer; as well as they can produce asphyxia, lung damage and skin damage caused by increased solar radiation.
The operation of the page is based on the use of a form, therefore the user of the page must answer a series of questions, same that will help to have more information of their boat, such as; name, age, cell phone number, email, boat information data: product, boat size, month of departure from port, country of departure, country or city of destination, departure time, etc.
The main objective of this questionnaire is to avoid vessel traffic, and it will also help users to save energy by avoiding being stranded, and in the event that a high concentration of ships is forecast, the navigator will be notified to postpone the departure date.
The purpose of the project is to regulate the levels of toxic gases emitted by commercial ships, estimating the low levels recorded during the Covid-19 confinement. So, we can say that a reduction in the gases emitted by ships would have tangible health benefits, particularly for populations near ports and major shipping routes.
Web page. Own elaboration.
The DeepBlue team was inspired to choose this challenge because it is a topic of high ecological impact and low social interest. For this reason, our main focus has been to create awareness in the world population of the importance of maritime traffic and the consequences it generates.
Through HTML, Excel and EO Dasboard, we were able to develop a page web in which we developed our project and provided solutions to it. One of the problems we had was obtaining information freely, but being a team made up of students who specialize in different academic fields, we were able to have optimal results despite the problems. Which was beneficial for both careers (Communication and Journalism and Industrial Engineering) since we were able to give each other feedback.
Web page. Own elaboration.
Answering the question, the data given by NASA were very useful since the days that had blockages or traffic jams were detected in months, this is very useful because every time ships, cars, among other transports spend too much time standing, the levels nitrogen begins to rise, in this way we can conclude that the data support us to know which regions and places should be optimized to have a lower concentration of nitrogen, for example, we can observe that in 2020 the month of September was the one with the highest traffic concentration, therefore higher concentration of nitrogen in the air according to data consulted from NASA.
Our solution based on the creation of a maritime traffic regulation program and on giving incentives, to promote the local production of certain products adn items to avoid the transport of goods and various raw materials around the world using ships.
This solution can be integrated into the Earth Observing Dashboard making an analysis of the most used maritime routes, seeing the countries of origin and destination that have more ships landing, and the goods that are transported in large volumes, to determine how we can make a maritime traffic plan that helps mitigate these large amounts of pollution that are released into the atmosphere by these ships. This plan should be based on a forecast made with the data from the Earth Observing Dashboard to see the trend on the level of NO2 and CO2, and if it has any seasonality or cyclicality, that could help us to have a better understanding about the problem and if it is required in a future modify the current solution to improve it.
In addition to this, the analysis and results can be added to the Earth Observing dashboard as an option or section that presents the results and be easy to access for everyone, thos could be an alternative to make people more aware of this huge problem of air quality in the world, because most people are not fully aware of the long distances that the products that they consume daily travel to reach their hands and how much fuel and polluting gases emit the boats that make this possible.
Own elaboration with data from EO DASHBOARD
#AirQuality #MakeAware #SeaTransport #Forecast #Advise
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.