Observation of Maritime Traffic Interruption in Patagonia during the COVID-19 Lockdown Using Copernicus Sentinel-1 Data and Google Earth Engine
Human mobilization during the COVID-19 lockdown has been reduced in many areas of the world. Maritime navigation has been affected in strategic connections between some regions in Patagonia, at the southern end of South America. The purpose of this research is to describe this interruption of naviga...
| Autores: | , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/253566 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/253566 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Vessel detection Synthetic aperture radar Sentinel-1 Google Earth Engine EO browser Patagonia COVID-19 lockdowns |
| Sumario: | Human mobilization during the COVID-19 lockdown has been reduced in many areas of the world. Maritime navigation has been affected in strategic connections between some regions in Patagonia, at the southern end of South America. The purpose of this research is to describe this interruption of navigation using satellite synthetic aperture radar data. For this goal, three locations are observed using geoinformatic techniques and high-resolution satellite data from the Sentinel-1 satellites of the European Commission’s Copernicus programme. The spatial information is analyzed using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform as a global geographical information system and the EO Browser tool, integrated with several satellite data. The results demonstrate that the total maritime traffic activity in the three geographical hotspots selected along western Patagonia, the Chacao Channel, crossing of the Reloncavi Fjord and the Strait of Magellan was totally interrupted during April–May 2020. This fact has relevant repercussions for the population living in isolated areas, such as many places in Patagonia, including Tierra del Fuego. The study also demonstrates the relevance of satellite radar observations in coastal areas with severe cloud cover, such as the one evaluated here. |
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