TRAFIC - Marine TRAnsportation, port Frequentation and environmental Inequalities in the Caribbean

This poster aims to present TRAFIC, a research project just awarded by the Fondation de France (AAP 2019). TRAFIC is based on an interdisciplinary (geographers, marine biologists, geomaticians, physicists, etc.) and inter-institutional team (research laboratory, state services, companies, economic actors and associations), that gathers about 20 people. The objective of the project is to analyze the interactions between marine navigation and environment, through AIS (Automatic identification system) vessel positioning data, that allow to define the frequentation of marine and harbor areas. The hypothesis of the existence of environmental inequalities vis-a-vis the ship can thus be posed with regard to environmental regulations: the most polluting ships would frequent the least restrictive legal spaces. Of course, these inequalities are also expressed at the port of call level. The idea of a port vulnerability to the shipowners strategies can be explored, as harbour Authorities don’t have control over the quality of the ships they host. Beyond the mere presentation of TRAFIC topic and main hypotheses, the poster presents the Caribbean marine transportation context. It is based on maps, showing the flow of marine trade and the key features of the Caribbean basin, along with photographic views showing representative landscape features of the urban-port problematic that takes place in Pointe-a-Pitre. (Guadeloupe).