A new method could enable monitoring of where plastic waste could end up in rivers and oceans
A new computational system uses satellite data to identify land-based locations where people dispose of waste, provides new tools to monitor waste, and reveals where plastic can leak into waterways. increase. Caleb Kruse of Earthrise Media in Berkeley, CA, Dr. Fabien Laurier of the Minderoo Foundation in Washington DC, and colleagues have published the method in an open access journal. pro swan January 18, 2022.
Every year, millions of tons of plastic waste enter the ocean, harming hundreds of species and their ecosystems. Most of this waste comes from land-based sources that leak into the watershed. Addressing this problem requires a better understanding of where people dump their waste on land, and detection and monitoring of such sites (both official and unofficial or illegal). Insufficient resources to do so.
In recent years, the use of computational tools known as neural networks to analyze satellite data has shown great value in the field of remote sensing. Building on that work, Kruse and his colleagues developed a new system of neural networks that analyze data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite, which could potentially be used to monitor land-based waste sites. showed.
To evaluate the performance of the new system, researchers first applied it to Indonesia and detected 374 waste sites. This is more than double his number of sites reported in public records. The system was expanded to all countries in Southeast Asia and identified a total of 966 waste sites. This is almost three times the number of sites publicly recorded and subsequently confirmed for existence by other means.
Researchers have demonstrated that the new system can be used to monitor waste sites over time. Furthermore, they showed that nearly 20% of the waste sites they detected were within 200 meters of a watercourse, with visible runoff in rivers that eventually reach the ocean.
These findings, as well as future findings using this system, may inform waste management policy and decision-making. Because the data is public, stakeholders can use it to advocate for action within the community. In the future, researchers plan to refine and expand the new waste site monitoring system on a global scale.
The author adds: “For the first time, Global Plastic Watch will provide governments and researchers around the world with data that can guide better waste management interventions, keeping land-based waste out of our oceans.”
Original: Satellites can be used to detect waste sites on Earth
