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Marine litter

Following some preparatory studies, in 2019 ESA launched a Discovery Element campaign on marine litter, asking for ideas to detect and track seaborne plastic litter using satellites. Based on these ideas, all submitted via the then brand new Open Space Innovation Platform, 26 innovative projects have been kicked off in 2020 to together better map the direction humanity should take to achieve this ambition.

The campaign was overseen by ESA's Paolo Corradi, Moritz Fontaine and Leopold Summerer and the resulting activities were overseen by ESA's Alessandra Ciapponi, Paolo Corradi, Erio Gandini and Peter de Maagt.

The activities list (tab on the right here above) provide the status and outcome of these activities.

Events

Upcoming events

(none at the moment)

Past events

16-17 October 2023: Workshop on Remote Sensing of Marine Litter, | ESA-ESTEC | Netherlands: https://atpi.eventsair.com/remote-sensing-of-marine-litter/ 

Webstories and sites

  • Plastic litter in global oceans, 19/03/2018 (link)
  • A step forward in detecting plastic marine litter from space, 01/07/2020 (link)
  • The Discovery Campaign on Remote Sensing of Plastic Marine Litter, 2 April 2021 (link) 
  • Tracking marine plastic drift from space, 09/08/2022, (link)
  • Remote sensing of plastic marine litter, 28/11/2023, (link)
  • Spectral properties of submerged and biofouled marine plastic litter (video), 11/05/2023, (link) 
  • Thermal infrared remote sensing of marine plastic litter, 11/05/2023 (link)
  • Artificial Intelligence and drones supporting the detection and mapping of floating aquatic plastic litter (AIDMAP), 11/05/2023 (link)
  • Innovations in detecting plastic marine litter from space, 28/11/2023, (link)
  • Third Party Mission data help advance plastic litter detection from space, 05/06/2023, (link)

Selected related publications

Title

(alphabetical order)

Publication type

Publications 

AGGREGATION FORECAST

Journal

 

Conference

 

AIDMAP

Journal

Iordache, M.-D., L. De Keukelaere, R. Moelans, L. Landuyt, M. Moshtaghi, P. Corradi, and E. Knaeps. (2022). Targeting Plastics: Machine Learning Applied to Litter Detection in Aerial Multispectral Images. Remote Sensing 14, no. 22: 5820. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14225820 

Conference

Moshtaghi, M and Knaeps, E. (2021).Combining Spectral Approaches and AI for Marine Litter Detection and Identification.International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS)

AIR-SOS

Journal

 

Conference

 

BLUE

Journal

Palombi, L.; Raimondi, V. Experimental Tests for Fluorescence LIDAR Remote Sensing of Submerged Plastic Marine Litter. Remote Sensing 2022, 14, doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14235914

Conference

Palombi L., Raimondi V., de Vries R., Ciapponi A., Corradi P.: Airborne backscatter LIDAR data over the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and their processing for the Detection of Marine Litter: pros and cons analysis, ESA living planet symposium 2022 - Bonn, Germany, 23-27 May, 2022.

Raimondi V., Palombi L., de Vries R., Ciapponi A., Corradi P.: Experimental tests for the detection and characterisation of Plastic Marine Litter by means of fluorescence LIDAR technique, ESA living planet symposium 2022 - Bonn, Germany, 23-27 May, 2022.

Raimondi V., Di Maggio P., Gonnelli A., Palombi L., de Vries R., Ciapponi A., Corradi P.: Remote Sensing Of Plastic Marine Litter By Means Of Fluorescence Lidar, IGARSS-2023, Pasadena, California (USA), 16 - 21 July, 2023.

DL4PML

Journal

 

Conference

 

DOLPHINN

Journal

 

Conference

 

FROM SOURCE TO SINK

Journal

 

Conference

 

FRONTAL

Journal

Martinez-Vicente, Victor. (2022). The Need for a Dedicated Marine Plastic Litter Satellite Mission. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 3 (11): 728–29. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00360-2

Armitage, Sophie, Katie Awty-Carroll, Daniel Clewley, and Victor Martinez-Vicente. (2022). Detection and Classification of Floating Plastic Litter Using a Vessel-Mounted Video Camera and Deep Learning. Remote Sensing 14 (14): 3425. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14143425.

Conference

Martinez-Vicente V, Miller P.I., Clark J. , Al Azhar M., Biermann L., Cole M., Gibert  F., Kurekin A., Lindeque P., Romero L. , Chin P., Iwasaki A., Giardino   C. (2022) FRONTAL: Satellite FRONTs for detection of Anthropogenic plastic Litter. European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium, 23-27 May, Bonn, Germany.

HYPERDRONE

Journal

 

Conference

Aser Mata, Victor Martinez-Vicente, William Jay, Mark Warren, Philip Anderson, Irina Dioguardi, Richard Thompson,  Using hyperspectral radiometry towards subpixel detection of plastics on rivers and shorelines, ESA Living Planet Symposium 2022, 23-27 May 2022, A8.08, ID = 65445

LOCATE

Journal

 

Conference

Hernandez, I., Castro Rosero, L. M., Espino, M., and Alsina, J. M. 2023. Numerical simulation and analysis of floating marine litter dispersion and accumulation in coastal regions around Barcelona city, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1486, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1486, 2023.

Castro Rosero, L. M., Hernandez, I., Espino, M., and Alsina, J. M.: Numerical analysis of transport and accumulation of floating marine litter in the Black Sea., EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-2073, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-2073, 2023.

MARLISAT

Journal

Lavender, S., 2022. Detection of Waste Plastics in the Environment: Application of Copernicus Earth Observation Data. Remote Sens. 14, 4772. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14194772

Conference

Lavender S.  & M.Lucas, 2022, Detection of Marine Plastic Source Locations using Machine Learning applied to Sentinel-1 & Sentinel-2 Data, European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium, 23-27 May, Bonn, Germany.

ML-OPSI

Journal

 

Conference

 

MUSS2

Journal

 

Conference

 

OCEANSCAN

Journal

 

Conference

Romero L., Galante G., Moreno P., Grau G., Baztan J., Bochow M., Österberg P., Corradi P., 2022, A new centralized point to access existing marine litter data in a labelled format and integrating matching satellite imagery, European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium, 23-27 May, Bonn,  Germany.

Savastano S., Cester I., Perpinyà M., Romero L., 2021, A First Approach to the Automatic Detection of Marine Litter in SAR Images Using Artificial Intelligence, IEEE International Symposium on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 11-16 July 2021, Brussels, Belgium.

OP3

Journal

Garaba, S.P., and Harmel, T. (2022). Top-of-atmosphere hyper and multispectral signatures of submerged plastic litter with changing water clarity and depth. Optics Express, 30(10): 16553-16571. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.451415.

Burggraaff, O.(2022) Accessible remote sensing of water. PhD Thesis - University of Leiden, The Netherlands, 206 pp.

Park, Y-J., Garaba, S.P., and Sainte-Rose, B. (2021) Detecting the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floating plastic litter using WorldView-3 satellite imagery. Optics Express, 29(22):35288-35298,  https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.440380.

Conference

Harmel, T., Burggraaff, O., Garaba, S., Foster, R., and Corradi, P. (2022) Polarization signatures of nano- and microplastics suspended in the water column simulated at the water surface and top-of-atmosphere levels. European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium, 23-27 May, Bonn, Germany.

PLASTIC BLACK SEA

Journal

 

Conference

 

PLASTIC MONITOR

Journal

 

Conference

 

PLASTIC PLANT

Journal

Schreyers, L., Van Emmerik, T., Nguyen, T. L., Castrop, E., Phung, N. A., Kieu-Le, T. C., ... & van Der Ploeg, M. (2021). Plastic plants: the role of water hyacinths in plastic transport in tropical rivers. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 177.

Schreyers, L., van Emmerik, T., Nguyen, T. L., Phung, N. A., Kieu-Le, T. C., Castrop, E., ... & van Der Ploeg, M. (2021). A field guide for monitoring riverine macroplastic entrapment in water hyacinths. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 9, 716516.

Janssens, N., Schreyers, L., Biermann, L., Van Der Ploeg, M., Bui, T. K. L., & Van Emmerik, T. (2022). Rivers running green: water hyacinth invasion monitored from space. Environmental Research Letters, 17(4), 044069.

Tasseron, P., Van Emmerik, T., Peller, J., Schreyers, L., & Biermann, L. (2021). Advancing floating macroplastic detection from space using experimental hyperspectral imagery. Remote Sensing, 13(12), 2335.

Tasseron, P. F., Schreyers, L., Peller, J., Biermann, L., & van Emmerik, T. (2022). Toward Robust River Plastic Detection: Combining Lab and Field-Based Hyperspectral Imagery. Earth and Space Science, (11).

Conference

Schreyers, L., van Emmerik, T., Biermann, L., & van der Ploeg, M. (2022, July). Direct and Indirect River Plastic Detection from Space. In IGARSS 2022-2022 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 5539-5542). IEEE.

Preprint

Schreyers, L. J., Bui, K., van Emmerik, T., Biermann, L., Uijlenhoet, R., Nguyen, H. Q., & van der Ploeg, M. J. (2023). Discontinuity in fluvial plastic transport increased by floating vegetation. Authorea Preprints. DOI: 10.22541/essoar.167590832.28978202/v1

Schreyers, L. D., van Emmerik, T. H., Bui, K., Van Le Thi, K., Vermeulen, B., Nguyen, H. Q., & van der Ploeg, M. (2023). Tidal dynamics limit river plastic transport. EGUsphere, 1-29.

Lotcheris, R., Schreyers, L., Bui, T. K. L., Thi, K., Nguyen, H. Q., Vermeulen, B., & van Emmerik, T. Plastic Does Not Simply Flow into the Sea: River Transport Dynamics Affected by Tides and Floating Plants. Available at SSRN 4449742.

PLASTICSURF

Journal

Simpson, M.D, Marino, A., de Maagt, P., Gandini, E., de Fockert, A., Hunter, P., Spyrakos, E., Tyler., Telfer, T. (2023). Investigating the backscatter of marine plastic litter using a C- and X-band ground radar, during a measurement campaign in Deltares. Remote Sensing 15 (6), 1654. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15061654

Simpson, M.D, Marino, A., de Maagt, P., Gandini, E., Hunter, P., Spyrakos, E., Tyler., Telfer, T. (2022). Monitoring of plastic islands in river environment using Sentinel-1 SAR data. Remote Sensing, Vol 14 (18), 4473.  https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14184473

Simpson, M.D, Akbari, V., Marino, A., Prabhu, G.N., Bhowmik, D., Rupavatharam, S., Datta, A., Kleczkowski, A., Sujeetha, J.A.R.P., Anantrao, G.G., Poduvattil, V.K., Kumar, S., Maharaj, S., Hunter, P.D. (2022). Detecting water hyacinth infestation in Kuttanad, India, Using Dual-Pol Sentinel-1 SAR imagery. Remote Sensing, Vol 14 (12), 2845. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14122845

Conference

Simpson, M.D, Marino, A., de Maagt, P., Gandini, E., de Fockert, A., Hunter, P., Spyrakos, E., Tyler., Telfer, T. 2023. Investigating the backscatter of marine plastic litter using a C- and X-band ground radar. In EuCAP 17th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP).

Simpson, M., Marino, A., de Maagt, P., Gandini, Hunter, P., E., Spyrakos, E., Tyler. 2022. Monitoring of large plastic accumulations near dams using Sentinel-1 polarimetric SAR data. In IGARSS 2022 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

Simpson, M., Marino, A., de Maagt, P., Gandini, E., Hunter, P., Spyrakos, E., Tyler, A.N., Ackermann, N., Hajnsek, I., Nunziata, F., Telfer, T. 2021. Monitoring surfactants pollution potentially related to plastics in the world gyres using radar remote sensing. In IGARSS 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

PLP

Journal

Papageorgiou, D.; Topouzelis, K.; Suaria, G.; Aliani, S.; Corradi, P., (2022). Sentinel-2 Detection of Floating Marine Litter Targets with Partial Spectral Unmixing and Spectral Comparison with Other Floating Materials (Plastic Litter Project 2021). Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 5997. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14235997

K. Topouzelis and D. Papageorgiou, 2021,  PLASTIC LITTER PROJECTS: Dedicated experiments for the detection of floating marine plastic litter, ISPRS-SC SPECTRUM, Vol15, No2, Remote Sensing of Coastal Environments, http://sc.isprs.org/sc-newsletter.html

Topouzelis, K., Papageorgiou, D., Suaria, G., & Aliani, S. (2021). Floating marine litter detection algorithms and techniques using optical remote sensing data: A review. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 170, 112675. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112675

Conference

Konstantinos Topouzelis, Dimitris Papageorgiou (2022). Plastic Litter Project 2021 – Detection of plastic litter on the surface of the sea using satellite images and drone data, 2nd Conference «Innovation and Research Days - Dimitris Eduardos Gardikis», 1/06/2022, University of the Aegean, Athens, Greece.

Konstantinos Topouzelis, Dimitris Papageorgiou (2022). Plastic Litter Project 2022: first results on the detection of artificial floating marine litter targets, 7th International Marine Debris Conference (7IMDC), Busan, Republic of Korea, 18 - 23 September 2022.

Dimitris Papageorgiou, Konstantinos Topouzelis, Alexandros Karagaitanakis, Stefano Aliani, Plastic Litter Project (PLP21) (2022). – calibration and validation data for Sentinel-2 floating marine litter remote detection, ESA’s Living Planet Symposium 2022, 23-27 May 2022, World Conference Center Bonn, Bonn, Germany.

REACT

Journal

Kremezi, M., Kristollari, V., Karathanassi, V., Topouzelis, K., Kolokoussi, P., Taggio, N., Aiello, A., Ceriola, G., Barbone, E., Corradi, P., 2021. Pansharpening PRISMA Data for Marine Plastic Litter Detection Using Plastic Indexes. IEEE Access, 9, pp. 61955-61971 https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.307390

Kremezi, M., Kristollari, V., Karathanassi, V., Topouzelis, K., Kolokoussi, P., Taggio, N., Aiello, A., Ceriola, G., Barbone, E., Corradi, P., 2022. Increasing the Sentinel-2 potential for marine plastic litter monitoring through image fusion techniques, Marine Pollution Bullettin, 182, 113974 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.113974

Taggio, N., Aiello, A., Ceriola, G., Kremezi, M., Kristollari, V., Kolokousis, P., Karathanassi, V., Barbone, E., 2022. A Combination of Machine Learning Algorithms for Marine Plastic Litter Detection Exploiting Hyperspectral PRISMA Data, Remote Sensing, 14, 3606 https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14153606

Conference

Aiello, A., Karathanassi, V., Barbone, E., Corradi, P., 2022. Exploring Spectral Signature Unmixing techniques and Machine Learning algorithms on fused multi- and hyper-spectral data for plastic marine litter detection – the REACT project. European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium, 23-27 May, Bonn, Germany

SPOTS

Journal

 

Conference

 

TISPALI

Journal

Goddijn-Murphy, L.,Williamson, B.J., McIlvenny, J., Corradi, P. (2022). Using a UAV Thermal Infrared Camera for Monitoring Floating Marine Plastic Litter. Remote Sensing, 14, 3179. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14133179

Goddijn-Murphy, L., Woolf, D.; Pereira, R., Marandino, C.,  Callaghan, A.H.,  Piskozub, J. (2023). The links between marine plastic litter and the air-sea flux of greenhouse gases. Frontiers in Marine Science. In review

Conference

Goddijn-Murphy, L., Williamson, B., McIlvenny, J., Bremner, B. (2022). TISPLALi, thermal infrared sensing of marine plastic litter. Ocean Sciences Meeting 2022, February 27 – March 4, Honolulu, Hawaii, HI, USA

Goddijn-Murphy, L.,Williamson, B.J., McIlvenny, J., Corradi, P. (2022). Using drone based thermal infrared camera to monitor floating plastic. European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium, 23-27 May, Bonn, Germany.

TRACE

Journal

Schmidt T., Kuester T., Smith T., Bochow M. (2023). Potential of Optical Spaceborne Sensors for the Differentiation of Plastics in the Environment. Remote Sensing 15(8):2020. doi:10.3390/rs15082020

Conference

Bochow, M., Weiss, T., Romero, L., Chester, I., Machefer, M., Ghezzo, M., Ferrarin, C. (2020). Detection and tracking of large marine litter based on high-resolution remote sensing time series, machine learning, and ocean current modelling - TRACE. ESA Phi Week, October 2nd, 2020, online

Weiss, T., Bochow, M., Chester, I., Ghezzo, M., Ferrarin, C., Machefer, M., Romero, L. (2021). TRACE - software system to detect and track large floating marine litter. One Integrated Marine Debris Observing System (IMDOS) for a Clean Ocean, 17 to 19 November 2021, online. https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_luGx3BM=/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w47InE5BAz4

WASP

Journal

Cózar, A., Aliani, S., Basurko, O. C., Arias, M., Isobe, A., Topouzelis, K., ... & Morales-Caselles, C. (2021). Marine litter windrows: a strategic target to understand and manage the ocean plastic pollution. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, 571796.

Cózar, A., Arias, M., Suaria, G. et al. Proof of concept for a new sensor to monitor marine litter from space. Nat Commun 15, 4637 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48674-7

Conference

Arias, M., Turiel, A., Portabella, M. (2022): Detecting floating matter as proxy of marine litter: the case of Copernicus Sentinel-2, lessons learned and perspectives, Workshop on shallow water and floating matter remote sensing, 20-21 September 2022, https://waterforce.eu/es/workshops/shallow-water

Arias, M., Cozar, A., Aliani, S., Suaria, G., Delaney, J., Sumerot, R. (2022): Observation of Marine Litter Windrows with Sentinel-2/MSI as a Strategic Target for Plastic Pollution, ESA Living Planet Symposium 2022, 23-27 May 2022, https://lps22.eu/programme

Arias, M., Sumerot, R., Delaney, J., Coulibaly, F., Cozar, A., Aliani, S., ... & Corradi, P. (2021, July). Advances on Remote Sensing of Windrows as Proxies for Marine Litter Based on Sentinel-2/MSI Datasets. In 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS (pp. 1126-1129). IEEE.

Arias, M., Sumerot, R., Delaney, J., Coulibaly, F., Cozar, A., Aliani, S., Suaria, G., Papadopoulou, T., and Corradi, P.: Mapping Windrows as Proxies for Marine Litter Monitoring from Space (WASP), EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-15275, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15275.