Last year, a number of people from the shipping and navigation communities started developing Eyesea, a non-profit project with a goal of mapping of maritime pollution and hazards using crowdsourced data and images. Basically, the concept is to develop an app for ship crews, shore staff, recreational sailors, and the public to take geolocated, time stamped photos and pictures of maritime pollution and hazards, (plastic, containers, oil spills, nets etc).
The premise is to turn ships and crew and people on the docks and the beaches into the eyes of the ocean. The data will be integrated into maritime charts and used to support ocean/harbour/coastal clean-ups and scientific research. In a nutshell – crowdsourcing environmental and navigational hazard data and working with communities on behavioural change and clean up actions.
They have obtained full funding for the build of the reporting platform and they have been carrying out extensive ‘at sea’/coastal trials of the tech, and they are now getting vessel owner and manager support.
Industry interest from across the maritime sector has been very encouraging, with a fleet of around 1500+ ships and recreational craft offered to the project through word of mouth. They are also receiving daily approaches from clean up groups and individuals from all over the world offering to trial the Eyesea app and to start data collection.
Eyesea.org App has now gone live and is available on Google Play & the Apple Store, so would appreciate all the support they can get as their success depends on people using the App and collecting, gathering and sharing data by using the App to take photos.
Read more on the link below:
Eyesea Introduction