VA-TRAC: Geospatial Trajectory Analysis for Monitoring, Identification, and Verification in Fishing Vessel Operations

Abstract

In order to ensure sustainability, fishing operations are governed by many rules and regulations that restrict the use of certain techniques and equipment, specify the species and size of fish that can be harvested, and regulate commercial activities based on licensing schemes. As the world's second largest exporter of fish and seafood products, Norway invests a significant amount of effort into maintaining natural ecosystem dynamics by ensuring compliance with its constantly evolving sciencebased regulatory body. This paper introduces VA-TRAC, a geovisual analytics application developed in collaboration with the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries in order to address this complex task. Our approach uses automatic methods to identify possible catch operations based on fishing vessel trajectories, embedded in an interactive web-based visual interface used to explore the results, compare them with licensing information, and incorporate the analysts' domain knowledge into the decision making process. We present a data and task analysis based on a close collaboration with domain experts, and the design and implementation of VA-TRAC to address the identified requirements.