Application of Geostatistical techniques to support data acquisition and predict maritime variables

The effect of all human activities in marine and coastal ecosystems, including pollution, depleted fisheries, and marine biodiversity, is insufficiently assessed. As such, it is widely recognized that there is an evident lack of information which must be tackled immediately. Part of the problem should be addressed by increasing monitoring. However, considering the vast areas to cover and characterize, as well as the amount of information generated, innovative approaches are required to increase knowledge about the ecosystem variables and effectively support the decision process, so that a more sustainable exploitation of marine resources can be reached. Geostatistics may represent an interesting approach to use, since it is a probabilistic technique able to deal with the variables spatial behavior and their heterogeneities. This paper is dedicated to a review and critical analysis of the existing works which already include geostatistics prediction techniques in the analysis of maritime problems, in order to ascertain its potential and its relevance in the context of marine current challenges.