Port calls and vessel trajectory dataset in the Caribbean with accurate port quays survey.

With the growth in maritime traffic comes an increased need for precise modelling, analysis, and visualisation to enhance the monitoring capabilities of maritime authorities. To address this need, a range of sensing technologies have been developed to track vessel movements worldwide. Among these, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) is particularly significant, offering high-frequency transmission of both location and identification data. This makes AIS an invaluable tool in the intricate process of modelling maritime traffic that we use in this study. Our study presents a comprehensive dataset for the Caribbean in 2019, including port calls, quay geometries, vessel trajectories, daily locations, a seven-class vessel classification, port statistics, and United Nations reference data for comparison. Beneficial for geomatics, geography, and economics, the dataset provides a versatile tool for visualising data, assessing maritime impact on coastal areas, and enhancing maritime trade analysis. The methodology extracts 1.5 million port calls from 642 million AIS messages, offering detailed data tables and reusable processes. Its granularity down to the single quay allows for flexible data analysis, facilitating in-depth understanding of port and inter-port maritime activities.

Kakila database: Towards a FAIR community approved database of cetacean presence in the waters of the Guadeloupe Archipelago, based on citizen science.

BACKGROUND: In the French West Indies, more than 20 species of cetaceans have been observed over the last decades. The recognition of this hotspot of biodiversity of marine mammals, observed in the French Exclusive Economic Zone of the West Indies, motivated the French government to create in 2010 a marine protected area (MPA) dedicated to the conservation of marine mammals: the Agoa Sanctuary. Threats that cetacean populations face are multiple, but well-documented. Cetacean conservation can only be achieved if relevant and reliable data are available, starting by occurrence data. In the Guadeloupe Archipelago and in addition to some data collected by the Agoa Sanctuary, occurrence data are mainly available through the contribution of citizen science and of local stakeholders (i.e. non-profit organisations (NPO) and whale-watchers). However, no observation network has been coordinated and no standards exist for cetacean presence data collection and management. NEW INFORMATION: In recent years, several whale watchers and NPOs regularly collected cetacean observation data around the Guadeloupe Archipelago. Our objective was to gather datasets from three Guadeloupean whale watchers, two NPOs and the Agoa Sanctuary, that agreed to share their data. These heterogeneous data went through a careful process of curation and standardisation in order to create a new extended database, using a newly-designed metadata set. This aggregated dataset contains a total of 4,704 records of 21 species collected in the Guadeloupe Archipelago from 2000 to 2019. The database was called Kakila ("who is there?" in Guadeloupean Creole). The Kakila database was developed following the FAIR principles with the ultimate objective of ensuring sustainability. All these data were transferred into the PNDB repository (Pöle National de Données de Biodiversité, Biodiversity French Data Hub, https://www.pndb.fr).In the Agoa Sanctuary and surrounding waters, marine mammals have to interact with increasing anthropogenic pressure from growing human activities. In this context, the Kakila database fulfils the need for an organised system to structure marine mammal occurrences collected by multiple local stakeholders with a common objective: contribute to the knowledge and conservation of cetaceans living in the French Antilles waters. Much needed data analysis will enable us to identify high cetacean presence areas, to document the presence of rarer species and to determine areas of possible negative interactions with anthropogenic activities.