MARIS is a maritime innovation initiative born in the French Pacific overseas territories. Designed for island territories, by island territories, the system combines spatial data, in-situ capabilities, artificial intelligence and regional cooperation to produce maritime knowledge that supports surveillance, management and policy evaluation across marine spaces.
In the Pacific, the sea is not a strategic abstraction. It shapes trade, biodiversity protection, inter-island mobility, economic activity, management of sensitive areas and cooperation between public actors. MARIS starts from this concrete reality to design maritime surveillance adapted to vast spaces, insularity and the need to connect observation, action and evaluation.
MARIS is born in the French oceanic territories, in direct contact with field needs — lagoons, anchorages, archipelagos and vast EEZs.
The system is designed for Pacific realities: island dispersion, limited resources, very long distances and the need for coordination.
The ambition is not only to detect, but to inform decisions and measure the effects of management year after year.
New Caledonia and French Polynesia place the overseas territories at the core of France's maritime reality. Vast spaces, archipelagic dispersion, environmental challenges and the need for regional coordination: these territories demand new responses, designed locally, with a deep understanding of local uses and constraints.
MARIS is built from the field, based on concrete situations experienced in Oceanian archipelagos: environmental monitoring, activity tracking, anchorage management, inter-agency coordination, digital sovereignty and the need to pool resources across very large marine spaces.
A dynamic led from the French oceanic territories, with a sharp understanding of public and operational needs in the Pacific.
Maritime flows, environmental pressures and vessel trajectories ignore administrative boundaries. MARIS is designed to connect territories and actors.
Governance, hosting, interoperability and digital sovereignty adapted to the real priorities of island territories.
An approach born in the Pacific but designed to be reproduced in other island or overseas contexts.
MARIS aims to transform fragmented data streams into a clear, traceable and actionable operational picture. The system does not rely on a single source, but on an intelligence of combination.
The core of the system cross-references different sources to detect anomalies, qualify behaviours, enrich observed objects and document events in their spatial and temporal context.
Anomaly detection, behaviour scoring, weak signal consolidation, zone-specific learning and production of actionable indicators.
Targeted triggering of acquisitions or verifications based on events detected by the analysis chain.
Reviewing situations, capitalising on events, comparing periods and understanding dynamics over time.
Mapping, alerts, analysis layers, dashboards and views adapted to different surveillance and management workflows.
No single technology can acquire all the information needed for a fine-grained understanding of the sea. MARIS advocates a hybrid approach: articulating spatial observation with distributed, cooperative in-situ capabilities adapted to the operational realities of island territories.
Cover vast areas, detect situations, refresh the overall picture and guide complementary acquisitions.
Embed detection or collection capabilities on volunteer vessels to densify field knowledge.
Supplement coverage, refine local observation and operate in areas or time windows where spatial reaches its limits.
Validate observations, enrich models and document situations as close to the field as possible.
The challenge is not to stack sensors, but to orchestrate them: spatial for the wide view, in-situ for field grounding, AI for fusion, web interfaces for action.
MARIS opens the way to demonstrators combining imagery, cooperative sensors, lightweight instrumentation, autonomous drones and distributed observation devices.
MARIS does not start from a blank page. The project builds on concrete operational feedback, already engaged in the context of supervising the Coral Sea Natural Park — one of the largest marine protected areas in the world.
An initial functional base has demonstrated the operational value of an enriched maritime picture in the Oceanian context.
The objective is now to go further: SaaS architecture, scalability, multi-tenancy, new sensors, AI enrichment and deployment across multiple territories.
MARIS aims to produce annual indicators to track the evolution of maritime activities and measure the effects of public policies, surveillance measures and management rules applied to marine spaces.
By consolidating observations over time, MARIS enables a shift from detection logic to evaluation logic. Managers can track trends, compare periods, objectify changes and better arbitrate their actions.
Counting, presence, dwell time, recurrence, density by zone or by period.
Intensity of use in sensitive areas, evolution of practices, before/after comparison for management measures.
Measuring observable effects of a regulation, surveillance measure or management plan.
Production of annual dashboards, management reports and structured dialogue between services, elected officials, managers and partners.
MARIS is led by MAGIS with the ambition of connecting field needs, European spatial innovation and digital sovereignty adapted to the realities of the Pacific.
The project is part of a favourable innovation environment, with exchanges and structuring prospects involving the French Tech ecosystem, CNES and ESA around spatial, technological and scaling dimensions.
Target architecture, priority use cases, data chain and service model.
Technical, operational and economic validation of advanced and hybrid components.
Scale-up on a pilot territory with value measurement and demonstration.
Progressive deployment to other island territories and overseas contexts.
MARIS is designed for civil authorities, marine space managers, port actors, technical institutions and regional cooperation bodies that need an agile, contextualised system built for island realities.
Working alongside existing systems, without replacing the military or sovereign chains already in place.
An architecture designed to progressively integrate new sources, new sensors and new territories.
With attention to governance, data control and adaptation to local constraints.
Interested in exploring a territorial pilot, a feasibility study, a hybrid spatial + in-situ approach, or an innovation trajectory designed from oceanic territories? Let's talk.