Proof of concept for a new sensor to monitor marine litter from space.

ABSTRACT: Worldwide, governments are implementing strategies to combat marine litter. However, their effectiveness is largely unknown because we lack tools to systematically monitor marine litter over broad spatio-temporal scales. Metre-sized aggregations of floating debris generated by sea-surface convergence lines have been reported as a reliable target for detection from satellites. Yet, the usefulness of such ephemeral, scattered aggregations as proxy for sustained, large-scale monitoring of marine litter remains an open question for a dedicated Earth-Observation mission. Here, we track this proxy over a series of 300,000 satellite images of the entire Mediterranean Sea. The proxy is mainly related to recent inputs from land-based litter sources. Despite the limitations of in-orbit technology, s

SUBMITTER: Cozar A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11178853 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature