I’ve been working hard on the openfisheries.org data API and Carl Boettiger has been working hard on a package for the R programming language as part of the rOpenSci.org project. The package downloads openfisheries data into the R development environment for further processing. An initial test of the API allowed Carl to download the data required to produce this graphic with the ggplot library for R. Looks great!
With results like this, development on the API must continue. Goals for the immediate future will include adjustments to the API that will allow for downloading landings by ecosystem and by species group. I’ll also need to make sure that species information, which is currently byASFIS classification is sufficient for most scientific purposes, as well as to be combined with other fishery data like the RAM legacy stock assessment database.
I have been in contact with the rOpenSci.org team, a startup focused developing tools for facilitating open science, to develop a package for the R programming language. I’m really excited about this package because it has the potential to bring the wealth of data available through openfisheries.org to the R platform, which is used by a large and growing community of data scientists around the world. The rOpenSci team is also behind the wonderful rfishbase package for R, which allows one to search fishbase.org for fish species data and bring this information into R. I’m very much looking forward to working with these developers and advancing open science and open data in fisheries.
In sharing the OpenFisheries.org project with some colleagues I’ve been asked variations of the question “Why does this project matter?”. The answer seems plain to me, but to explain it I think an example from David Eaves does well to highlight the importance of open data in general.
To summarize David’s post, he says that reducing the barriers to obtaining and using data will increase use. In his example, improving access to transit data can increase ridership, which, will have a direct financial reward for those making the data available. In fisheries, the situation is somewhat different in that by increasing data availability neither the FAO or I are going to make any money. But, improved access to data will have the effect of increasing the number of minds working with the data and finding potential solutions to fisheries issues.
One of the biggest hurdles in world fisheries is that the field is somewhat small and less glamorous than many other fields. Making the investment needed to contribute to the field smaller through improved access to data and analysis tools will allow more people to contribute to the field. With the OpenFisheries project I’m banking on increased involvement from others who will allow the project to grow and reach a wide audience.
It has been said that our planet is misnamed. Indeed, since less than 30% of Earth’s surface area is land, a far more accurate name for our planet would be “Water”.
As humans we cannot live without water and the full importance of oceans to our planet cannot be understated. Yet, it is surprising that we understand very little about the effect of marine resource extraction to the world’s oceans. Roughly 80 million tonnes of fish and other aquatic animals are taken from the ocean every year, providing food and employment for millions. This site aims to be a open source platform for information on world fisheries that can help researchers, policy makers, journalists and citizens better understand world fisheries. If you have an comments, suggestions or ideas to share, you may contact me by e-mail (openfisheries [at] gmail [dot] com) or on twitter (@openfisheries)
