Google Earth image showing a fish farm off the coast of Greece.TRUJILLO P, PIRODDI C, JACQUET J (2012) PLOS ONE 7(2): E30546
The fishing industry is notorious for underreporting the number of organisms that are being fished out of the world’s oceans every year. To this end, publicly available satellite imagery may prove a valuable tool for monitoring fishing practices worldwide as well double checking official data released by countries and organizations.
In a study published today (February 8) in PLoS ONE, researchers used Google Earth to count and measure the number of coastal fish farms in 16 countries on the Mediterranean Sea in 2006 and estimate the amount of fish that were harvested from those operations that year.
They found that while the overall fish production in the Mediterranean was close to what the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported for the region, several ...
