Abstract
Human mobilization during the COVID-19 lockdown has been reduced in many areas of the world. Maritime navigation has been affected in strategic connections between some regions in Patagonia, at the southern end of South America. The purpose of this research is to describe this interruption of navigation using satellite synthetic aperture radar data. For this goal, three locations are observed using geoinformatic techniques and high-resolution satellite data from the Sentinel-1 satellites of the European Commission’s Copernicus programme. The spatial information is analyzed using the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform as a global geographical information system and the EO Browser tool, integrated with several satellite data. The results demonstrate that the total maritime traffic activity in the three geographical hotspots selected along western Patagonia, the Chacao Channel, crossing of the Reloncavi Fjord and the Strait of Magellan was totally interrupted during April–May 2020. This fact has relevant repercussions for the population living in isolated areas, such as many places in Patagonia, including Tierra del Fuego. The study also demonstrates the relevance of satellite radar observations in coastal areas with severe cloud cover, such as the one evaluated here.
Highlights
Accepted: 12 March 2021The COVID-19 pandemic spread has virtually paralyzed daily life, and the world is facing huge challenges getting back to normal
The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the combination of remote sensing data, in particular Sentinel-1 imagery, and global platforms as Google Earth Engine (GEE) and EO Browser can be exploited in remote areas, as several strategic channels and straits in South America, under emergencies and exceptional situations as was during the COVID-19 lockdown
We focused on the western area, the Chilean territory interrupted by fjords and channels where there is not any road available to get to the south of the continent, for which the maritime connection is daily used by the citizens
Summary
Accepted: 12 March 2021The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) pandemic spread has virtually paralyzed daily life, and the world is facing huge challenges getting back to normal. Lagoon [2] and in the Indian Vembanad Lake [3] or decrease in cities’ pollution due to reduction in automobile traffic [4]. Some of these positive impacts have been confirmed thanks to satellite technology, the only methodology able to provide global, synoptic and mesoscale data in short periods of time. Monitoring the maritime traffic is key as a socioeconomic and human indicator Quantifying these transportation services at local, regional and national scales from space could advise on identifying the most affected regions as well as national and international activities and businesses. One of the affected means of transport has been maritime traffic
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