Offshore activities during the corona crisis - Open data as a barometer for the effects of the corona measures on shipping activity in the Belgian part of the North Sea and the Western Scheldt.

Globally, the economic consequences of the current corona crisis are an integral part of daily news reports. Just as the corona crisis is having a major impact on all kinds of land and airborne sectors, it is also having an impact on the 'blue economy', which globally accounts for 2.5 trillion dollars on an annual basis (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2015). In Flanders, the Blue Economy accounts for a turnover of 48.36 billion euros and employs 153,805 FTEs (study IDEA consult 2019 commissioned by De Blauwe Cluster). Maritime transport and offshore activities are an important part of this and are also impacted by the current crisis.

VLIZ therefore publishes a report that provides a first analysis of the corona related effects on shipping traffic in the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS) and the Western Scheldt (WS) for the period February - April 2020 versus 2019, all based on 'open data' (EMODnet Human Activities). The data analysis reveals a reduction in shipping traffic for cargo vessels (BPNS -11.8%; WS -5.5%), passenger vessels (BPNS -34.1%; WS -38.5%) and fishing vessels (BPNS -33.3%; WS -9.6%) compared to the same period last year. In the BPNS, due to a large number of calls in the port of Zeebrugge in February, tankers show a slightly positive trend (+0.9%), while a limited reduction of -1.2% is observed in the Western Scheldt. Furthermore, a decrease in tugboat activity is observed in the Western Scheldt and is inextricably linked to the decreasing cargo and (to a lesser extent) tanker activity compared to the reference period. These observations are closely in line with the figures already available from the Flemish seaports and can be linked to the corona pandemic with a high degree of certainty. Similar trends are recorded in almost all European sea basins (EMODnet Human Activities).

For fisheries in the BPNS (mainly foreign vessels), some large-scale changes occurred in the spring of 2020 compared to the spring of 2019 that make it difficult to estimate the effective impact of the coronavirus. For example, a ban on pulse fishing in the Belgian territorial sea (12 nautical mile zone) has been in force since 14 August 2019 and the Borssele wind farm in Dutch waters (adjacent to the BNZ) was closed to fishing from 28 September 2019 onwards. Nevertheless, the crisis has a clear effect on the trade of fresh fish landed by Belgian fishing vessels, due to a falling demand (e.g. catering closure) and reduced exports. The vessels involved in survey, maintenance and construction works of offshore wind farms, in turn, show no decrease in activity related to the coronavirus, but appear to have been affected by the harsh weather conditions in January and February of this year.

In conclusion, the aggregated open AIS data (density data) allows linking the variations in shipping traffic to specific events (e.g. corona, weather conditions, construction of offshore wind farms, etc.). In particular, the density maps prove to be a powerful tool for detecting high-resolution changes that can be attributed to concrete measures (e.g. reducing the activity of a particular ferry line).

The full report can be downloaded here. The data analysis scripts have been made available here while a selection of the maps can be consulted on the Coastal Portal.