Ballast Water Essay

Ballast Water Self-Monitoring System A ballast water self-monitoring system combined with an already approved and tested BWTS harnesses technological advancements that allow for a wide array of analytics and the ability to monitor ballast water treatment systems globally, creating transparency between vessel owners and subscribers in real time. A self-monitoring system would have to meet requirements enacted by different organizations and would have to comply with a stricter standard if an active substance is used for monitoring purposes and although testing can be costly it would be a lot less involved because this system is not directly filtering any of the ballast water. It allows for not only the industry to capture the rapid expansion …show more content…
It is also the primary reason why so much money goes into the research and development of vessels and the systems within. Although the crew may be small, vessels carry millions of dollars of cargo and it is important that the ship is preforming without any problems. The self-monitoring system supports this notion of safety by relaying wireless signals that measure analytics like flow rate to the bridge notifying the captain how the system is preforming during each discharge. The system relay’s the analytics to the captain and also the crew that is in charge of the operation of the system. The self-monitoring system would allow for further transparency between the BWTS and the crew promoting safety throughout the …show more content…
This self-monitoring system is able to store and report data through the available software. The data, which will include analytics like the location of discharge and amount of ballast water discharged. Alone they have little significance besides the fact that it allows the captain and crew to visualize how the system is operating, however when the software is storing thousands of these operations at any given time it allows for the formation of big data. Big data allows for data scientist’s to uncover trends, associations, and patterns all of which lead to further development in the maritime industry. An example of big data in the industry today, is the maritime automatic identification system. Automatic identification system was primarily developed to take place of marine radar, but through large sets of data the software has brought other advantages to the maritime industry like fishing fleet monitoring and control, maritime security, and ocean currents estimates. Furthermore, a software that can capture large sets of ballast water data could yield further advantages like targeting high traffic ballast exchange areas and testing the waters for invasive species to determine the effectiveness of the