“This is a machine learning initiative that is fundamental to the command’s port monitoring and pattern of life understanding efforts and falls in line with the broader AAA initiative as a computational system,” said Michael Kurey, an NGA senior geospatial analyst at USSOUTHCOM. To achieve this goal, USSOUTHCOM and NGA developed the Port Imaging Ship Change Exploitation Service (PISCES), which monitors port activities in about 20 countries, 60 port facilities, and over 150 geofenced areas of interest within these ports. In 2018, NGA set a mission goal to enhance the speed at which it provides insight to its partners, the precision of its assessments, and the scope of its mission through artificial intelligence, automation, and augmentation (AAA). The image on the top shows the vessel segmentation mask produced by the PISCES algorithm applied to show ships. The areas of interest, defined by an analyst, are outlined in red.
The image on the bottom, captured by Planet on July 17, 2019, shows Puerto Cabello, the largest and busiest port in Venezuela. Its duties include operations, contingency planning, and security cooperation. USSOUTHCOM is responsible for the landmass of Latin America, south of Mexico the waters adjacent to Central and South America the Caribbean Sea the Gulf of Mexico and a portion of the Atlantic Ocean. NGA embeds analysts at US military, diplomatic, and allied locations around the world, including DoD combatant commands such as the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM). The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is the primary source of GEOINT for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the 16 other US intelligence community agencies.Īnalyzing and disseminating GEOINT is complex. Key to this monitoring process is the collection and analysis of satellite imagery to produce geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). While most are engaged in declared (and legal) activities, monitoring ship movements is a critical part of United States’ frontline defense from potential threats to national security. These include military ships, cargo ships, tankers, and commercial fishing vessels. PISCES is a project of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and was developed by Jacob Katz, Peter Moyle, Ryan Peek, Nick Santos, Andy Bell, Rebecca Quiñones, and Joshua Viers, with the website developed by Elena Lopez, Amrit Subramanian, Sydney Vickery, and Dave Waetjen.At any given time, more than 50,000 ships are at sea or in port throughout the world. PISCES also can be flexibly configured to output this data in ways that correlate multiple variables and in multiple formats for analysis.
The software standardizes and stores the source data. PISCES is both software and a database containing information of fish species distribution in California historically, and in the present, according to primary source data, models, and leading experts. PISCES was developed with funding from the USDA Forest Service Region 5 and in collaboration with numerous experts in fish biology and distribution in California. This site contains exported data for those taxa, but does not yet include compiled maps. As of September 2012, it includes data on about half of the state's 129 native fish taxa.
The data are compiled from multiple sources and experts and is stored and exported as rangemaps and summary maps.
PISCES is software and data describing the best-known ranges for California's native fish.