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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

gfwr 2.0.4

Aug 5 2025

  • No breaking changes

  • Adds a new dataset, marine_regions, an in-package version of the modified Marine Regions v12 table to retrieve IDs when region_source = "EEZ".

  • Fixes issue #208 with marine_regions. This should not pose any breaking change on the user side.

  • Improves documentation for filter_by in get_raster() (#209)

gfwr 2.0.3

No breaking changes

Bug fixes

  • geartypes and shiptypes will be unnested only when they are returned in the responses–this was causing an error reported in #193
  • get_region_id():
    • MPA, EEZ, RFMO ids are no longer enforced to be numeric, this was causing errors for character and alphanumeric ids in RFMOS and MPAs
    • get_region_id() can now process empty id strings ("") and return NA tibbles instead of returning an error, this allows to process events happening in the high-seas (#201)

Documentation improvements

  • get_event() can receive a string of several vesselIds (not twenty as previously stated). However, requests that are too long in character length will fail with error HTTP 422: Unprocessable entity. This means around 2,000 vesselIDs can be sent per request.
  • RFMO documentation was improved to clarify that we have the complete list of RFMOs #194
  • The readme has more subsections for easier reference and explicit calls to gfw_auth() are no longer suggested.

gfwr 2.0.2

Minor updates in documentation, parameter reordering and improving descriptions. No breaking changes.

gfwr 2.0.1

2024-11-28

Major change - bug fix

  • We updated the parsing of the output of get_vessel_info(). For some advanced queries using where, the function was returning only a subset of the vessels. This issue is now solved and the number of results should be equal to the number of vessels returned by Vessel Viewer on our map. (solves #176)

Breaking changes

  • Some fields in the response were renamed across outputs (addressing issue #146):

New features

  • get_vessel_info(): We added an index column to indicate which vesselIds are grouped together and belong to the same vessel. This should help associate information from the returned datasets and guide the user when requesting events for a single vessel or a group of vessels.

  • get_event(): We unnested the column-list "vessel" to give more visibility to the vessels each event corresponds to.

Minor changes

  • We updated the get_event() section in the README to improve the workflow and send groups of vesselIds corresponding to one or multiple vessels.

gfwr 2.0.0

gfwr was updated to work with version 3 of our APIs. This results in various breaking changes in parameter names and output formats. We aim to list here the major modifications but please also check the API documentation and the migration guide if anything is new or missing.

Endpoints

  • Same endpoints as in v1.1.0
  • New endpoints:
    • get_events_stats() to get events statistics worldwide or for a specific region
    • get_last_report() to check status of last API request to get_raster()

Note: Some APIs were not implemented because they were primarily designed for a frontend application rather than for data download. These APIs are:

  • /v3/4wings/generate-png
  • /v3/4wings/tile/:type/:z/:x/:y
  • /v3/4wings/interaction/{z}/{x}/{y}/{cells}
  • /v3/4wings/bins/:z

Major changes and new features

  • General
    • Improved documentation in-package, including two vignettes that can be accessed in our website https://globalfishingwatch.github.io/gfwr/
    • Functions have a new parameter print_request that will print the API request and will be useful when requesting support. Please describe the problem, send a simplified script and copy the string of the request when filling an issue.
    • The region argument for get_raster() andget_event() now accepts sf polygons rather than GeoJSON strings
  • get_vessel_info()
    • Incorporated non-fishing vessel types to the datasets. A simple search will return vessels of all vessel types (“CARRIER”, “SUPPORT”, “PASSENGER”, “OTHER_NON_FISHING”, “SEISMIC_VESSEL”, “BUNKER_OR_TANKER”, and “CARGO” in addition to “FISHING”)
    • search_type = search replaces search type = "basic" and "advanced". Instead, use parameter query for basic search or parameter where for advanced search (i.e. when using SQL expressions)
    • Registry information is now available: Parameter includes allows the search to include ownership information, public authorizations from public registries, and the criteria for matching with AIS data
  • get_event()
    • Vessel types supported now include non-fishing vessels: “FISHING”, “CARRIER”, “SUPPORT”, “PASSENGER”, “OTHER_NON_FISHING”, “SEISMIC_VESSEL”, “BUNKER_OR_TANKER”, and “CARGO”
    • Event types now include fishing, gaps in AIS transmission, encounters, loitering events and port visits. Fishing events are specific to fishing vessels, loitering events are specific to carrier vessels. Port visits and encounters are available for all vessel types. Parameter confidence (1 to 4) allows filtering for high confidence port visits.
    • All parameters must now be specified using UPPER CASE (ex. event_type = "FISHING" instead of event_type = "fishing")
    • A user-defined shapefile can now be sent in the requests, as an sf object
  • get_raster()
    • All parameters must now be specified using UPPER CASE (ex. spatial_resolution = "LOW" instead of spatial_resolution = "low")
    • The region argument now accepts sf polygons rather than a GeoJSON string
    • Parameters start_date and end_date replace date_range for consistency with other functions

Additional changes

  • Option USER_JSON has been renamed to USER_SHAPEFILE for clarity (addresses #161)

gfwr 1.1.0

New features:

  • In addition to your own JSON region, can now pass EEZ or MPA id to get_raster() function to query specific region

  • get_region_id() now takes id and returns label. This allows you to get the label for the id values returned by certain endpoints (e.g. get_event())

  • Considerable speed increases in get_event() function

Bug fixes:

  • get_event() prints "Your request returned zero results" and returns NULL when the API response contains no results instead of causing an error.

Other news:

Updated documentation

  • get_raster(): requires group_by and appropriate parameter name is gearType

  • Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package.

gfwr 1.0.0

  • Initial release of the gfwr package. It includes functions to access three GFW APIs - Vessels API, Events API, and Map Visualization (4Wings) API.