Vessel Density Maps from AIS Data in the Northwest Atlantic, 2013-2022

2013 through 2022 vessel density maps derived from Automatic Identification System (AIS) data for the Northwest Atlantic, produced by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The data includes yearly and monthly aggregated maps for all vessel classes combined and yearly maps for individual vessel classes, intended to support marine spatial planning. The 2019 data provides a pre-COVID-19 pandemic baseline for maritime transport activity in the region.

Use Cases

• Modeling shipping traffic patterns for marine spatial planning based on aggregated vessel density.
• Analyzing temporal trends in maritime activity based on yearly and monthly density maps from 2013-2022.
• Assessing vessel class-specific distributions for environmental impact studies based on yearly class density maps.
• Establishing a pre-pandemic baseline for maritime transport sector analysis based on the 2019 data.

Strengths

• Covers a 10-year time range from 2013 through 2022.
• Includes multiple data formats (FGDB/GDB, XLSX, ESRI REST, PDF, PNG, GEOTIF) for different analytical needs.
• Provides both combined and vessel class-specific density maps for granular analysis.
• Published under the permissive OGL-CA-2.0 license.

Limitations

• Row count and sample data are unavailable, limiting suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the Northwest Atlantic region.

Provenance

Source

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Collection Method

Geographic information system (GIS) analysis of satellite-based and terrestrial-based Automatic Identification System (AIS) data.

Time Range

2013-2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-24 08:13:07.968039.

Geography

Northwest Atlantic