DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8380676
title: SPACK : spatio-temporal database dedicated to whaling, sealing and fishing  in Saint-Paul, Amsterdam, Crozet and Kerguelen Islands between 1780's and 1930's

description: SPACK is a spatio-temporal database dedicated to whaling, sealing and fishing history. It aims to gather miscellaneous and scattered sources about whaling, sealing and fishing voyages that visited Saint-Paul, Amsterdam, Crozet and Kerguelen Islands between 1780’s and 1930’s.


SPACK has been defined and populated during a PhD thesis in history. The main purpose is to assess the attendance of whaling, sealing and fishing ships around the French Southern Islands from the late 18th century. The goal is also to shed light on the issues arising from the first public policies for managing natural resources once French sovereignty was affirmed in the late 19th.


The data collected in SPACK are stored in the object-relational database, PostgreSQL, plus its spatial extension PostGIS. This repository can be used to create a new instance of the SPACK database. It contains 7 SQL files that represent the main tables of the SPACK model.


- attested_presence_areas: this table shows the dates on which the vessel is present in the area.


- code_areas: this table indicates the codes used to identify each covered area.


- code_sealing_gangs: this table shows the code used to indicate when a gang of hunters has been dropped off or relieved on shore by the ship.


- natural_resources: this table provides the codes used to classify vessel activity by 'area'.


- shipment_origin: this table lists the codes for the main shipowner's geographical origin.


- stop_over_voyages: this table describes the date of arrival and departure by 'area'. It also indicates the degree of interpolation of the data, month or day.


- voyages_areas: this table contains a list of vessels involved in whaling, fishing and sealing activities that crossed Saint-Paul, Amsterdam, Crozet or/and Kerguelen islands. It provides information such as vessel name, rig type, tonnage, port, shipment origin, natural resource exploited, agent, dates of presence, primary and secondary sources.


The main entity of this database is a ship attached to a voyage and a geographical area. This entity is described by a set of properties: ship’s and master’s names, geographical origin, shipowner, port, arrival and departure dates. Those data are featured in the voyages_areas table. The database also provides other helpful information, such as the dates of attendance on the island, the type of natural resource exploited and the sources used to identify a voyage.


The SPACK database takes profit from the Whaling History Database (https://whalinghistory.org/). It does not contain any data imported from WHDB, but it is still possible to link the two sources. Indeed, the voyages_areas table stores the identifier used by the WHDB to describe each voyage.


The WHDB provides the vessel's location in lat/lon for several voyages. Those locations have been processed to populate the voyages_areas table and check when a voyage crossed a study area: Saint-Paul, Amsterdam, Crozet or Kerguelen Islands. However, no spatial information is saved in the SQL files. You can contact the authors if you want more information about the spatial analysis techniques used.