Development of an algorithm for estimating the global amount of marine plastic debris on beaches using satellite images

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26630231
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Hydraulic engineering
• Research Institution: Ehime University
• Principal Investigator: Hinata Hirofumi 愛媛大学, 理工学研究科, 教授 (70272680)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KATAOKA Tomoya 国土技術政策総合研究所, 沿岸海洋・防災研究部, 研究官 (70553767)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): AOKI Shinichi 大阪大学, 大学院工学系研究科, 教授 (60159283) ; KATO Shigeru 豊橋技術科学大学, 大学院工学系研究科, 教授 (40303911)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 海洋プラスチック / 人工衛星 / 近赤外

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We developed an algorithm for detecting pixels of marine plastic debris from the 8-band multispectral satellite (Worldview-2) image by an experiment with a hyperspectral camera. In the experiment, the hyper spectra of two types of plastics (i.e., polyepropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS)) were obtained. From the hyper spectra of PP and PS, we created the 8-band multispectral image and generated color references for detecting PP and PS from the 8-band multispectral image. Consequently, we can successfully detect the pixels of PP and PS from the 8-band multispectral image.

Free Research Field

水工水理学