The human race has had a profound effect on the planet. Unfortunately, it hasn't always been positive. One of the overlooked issues we've caused is overfishing. By fishing too much, we have diminished the population of fish in a way that, according to many scientists, can even threaten oceanic ecosystems.
To highlight this issue, which is often poorly understood by the general public, Sam Slover, a 28-year-old student at the New York University Interactive Telecommunications Program has designed an interactive web aquarium that lets users see how the fish population has changed from 1910 until 2010.
"My goal was to take important data that at first glance can be a bit dry and turn it into something fun and visually appealing," Slover told Mashable. "Overfishing is a huge problem, and my hope is that this project can be a playful way for people to become more informed."
The project is called The Nature of Overfishing, and it was made for a programming course that Slover took at NYU. On the interactive website (check it out here), made with ProcessingJS and custom Javascript, a visitor can scroll through the past 100 years of fishing history. As years go by, the animated representations of big predatory fish and small prey fish either vanish or multiply.
Slover explains that overfishing has decimated mainly predatory fish, the ones humans eat. Their decrease has directly led to an increase in the population of prey fish. In 2010, there were 78% less predator fish than in 1910, whereas the population of small fish has increased 133%. The study and the website show the decline was initially slow (up to 1970 it was just 0.2% a year), but it picked up from 1970 to 1990 with a 4% annual decline. After that, the decline has slowed down to 2.9%.
The data on which the visualization is based comes from a study (PDF) by Villy Christensen and the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre.
"Overfishing has absolutely had a 'when cats are away, the mice will play' effect on our oceans," said Christensen, who presented the research findings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington. "By removing the large, predatory species from the ocean, small forage fish have been left to thrive."
Take a look for yourself at Slover's digital aquarium. His website will also be featured Monday at the NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program Spring Show.
Photo via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, screenshot courtesy of Sam Slover
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