Information technology giant Google and green groups Skytruth and Oceana unveiled on Friday the Global Fishing Watch to monitor overfishing activities around the world. To perform that daunting task, the project would combine cloud computing, big data and large networks.

The target of the watch is to "give citizens a simple, online platform to visualize, track and share information about fishing activity worldwide," a statement from Oceana said.

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According to a 2014 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report, more than 90 percent of the world's fishing areas are overfished.

The first global view of commercial fishing would be based on analysis of satellite data. Google showed how the platform works through a mapping workshop held on Friday at the 2014 International Union for Conservation of Nature World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia, reports Computerworld.

It analyzed Automatic Identification System traffic signals, automatically send via VHF transmitters on vessels. Among the data send using that method are the ship's name, speed and direction. The same information is available on websites such as Shipfinder.co.

Non-fishing vessels are excluded from the feeds and would not be plotted on the map. There is a demonstration video posted on YouTube on how to map vessels from the same country by using the same color. The video said that areas such as Kiribati's Phoenix Islands Protected Area, classified as sensitive or protected zones, could also be monitored for illegal fishing activity.

The watch has sufficient data from 2012 to 2013 to identify the overfished areas, allowing it to focus on creating a public-facing service showing fishing "in near real-time" and providing lead for authorities where overfishing activities happen.

It blamed overfishing for the destruction of the ocean ecosystem and pointed to species such as the Bluefin tuna as the target of illegal fishers and the concern of conservationists.

Although a lot of activities on the open seas are often "invisible," which prevents understanding better the problem and sharing the information globally, "Satellite data is allowing us to make human interaction with the ocean more transparent than even before," Skytruth President John Amos said in a statement.

Tagsglobal fishing watch, skytruth, oceana, overfishing