Spatio-temporal distribution of off-shore ships in the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone based on satellite imagery

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are areas controlled by specific legislations so as toattain economic prosperity. These zones are commonly established and controlled bygovernment officials and are primarily characterized by growing population and developingtransport infrastructure. One relevant case is the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone(PSEEZ) situated in the south of Iran, on the northern shores of the Persian Gulf. Thisparticular zone has been formed to extract, refine, and export gas. The coast of the PersianGulf has brought on further expansions in sea transportation, thereby increasing shippingactivities in the area. The chief mode of shipping goods and materials in the PSEEZ isMaritime transportation. Identification of areas where traffic is carried out requires thecollection of spatial data of ships. These spatial data are utilized in several applications formodeling of marine ecosystem. The central purpose of this research is to procure spatialdata required for the PSEEZ using optical remote sensing images. Thus, Landsat-8 andSentinel-2 images spanning from 2013 to 2018 were incorporated to identify ships in thestudy area. The threshold-based method was implemented for detecting the ships usinginfrared bands of 172 images, upon which a total of 3361 ships were identified. The map ofareas affected by ship traffic was prepared using Hot Spot analysis. The results specify thatmore than 80 square kilometers of the marine environment has been affected by ship trafficduring the years 2013- 2018.