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Biermann, L, Clewley, D, Martinez-Vicente, V and Topouzelis, KN 2020 Finding Plastic Patches in Coastal Waters using Optical Satellite Data. Scientific Reports, 10 (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62298-z
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Abstract/Summary
Satellites collecting optical data offer a unique perspective from which to observe the problem of plastic litter in the marine environment, but few studies have successfully demonstrated their use for this purpose. For the first time, we show that patches of floating macroplastics are detectable in optical data acquired by the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-2 satellites and, furthermore, are distinguishable from naturally occurring materials such as seaweed. We present case studies from four countries where suspected macroplastics were detected in Sentinel-2 Earth Observation data. Patches of materials on the ocean surface were highlighted using a novel Floating Debris Index (FDI) developed for the Sentinel-2 Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI). In all cases, floating aggregations were detectable on sub-pixel scales, and appeared to be composed of a mix of seaweed, sea foam, and macroplastics. Building first steps toward a future monitoring system, we leveraged spectral shape to identify macroplastics, and a Naïve Bayes algorithm to classify mixed materials. Suspected plastics were successfully classified as plastics with an accuracy of 86%
| Item Type: | Publication - Article |
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| Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.: | Daniel Clewley was funded through the NERC Earth Observation Data Acquisition and Analysis Service (NEODAAS). The authors thank Grant Blakeway and Janine Papendorf for sharing their photos of the floating plastics in Durban Harbour. We also thank Sevrine Sailley, Shubha Sathyendranath, Matthew Cole and Stefan Simis for their assistance and support. Correspondence to Lauren Biermann. |
| Subjects: | Data and Information Earth Observation - Remote Sensing Ecology and Environment Pollution |
| Divisions: | Plymouth Marine Laboratory > Science Areas > Earth Observation Science and Applications |
| Depositing User: | S Hawkins |
| Date made live: | 27 Apr 2020 09:35 |
| Last Modified: | 27 Apr 2020 09:35 |
| URI: | https://plymsea.ac.uk/id/eprint/8923 |
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