Publications by authors named "U Andriolo"
The OSPAR litter program was promoted to investigate the abundance and types of the most common macro-litter items on European beaches. This baseline analyses the data collected under the program on the North Atlantic Iberian coast between 2002 and 2020. The dataset includes surveys conducted on 25 beaches along the entire continental Portuguese coastline, as well as the shores of the Galicia and Andalusia regions of Spain.
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- Anthropogenic litter, specifically plastic, significantly impacts ecosystems, and scientists from various fields are working together to assess and reduce these pollutants.
- The research aimed to determine the best methods for monitoring macroplastic litter in rivers and oceans by surveying 46 researchers who evaluated different techniques such as visual census, drone surveys, satellite imagery, and GPS/GNSS trackers.
- Results indicated that traditional visual census and drone use were the most favored methods (scoring 3.5 and 2.0), while satellite imagery and GPS trackers were less effective due to validation challenges and range limitations, with scores below 1.2.
Article Synopsis
- The study emphasizes the importance of measuring the weight of marine litter, not just counting items, as it affects clean-up planning.
- Analyzed 80 publications revealed that marine litter averages 19.5 grams per item, with plastics making up 80% by number and 51% by weight.
- The findings can enhance future litter monitoring and support environmental protection efforts through improved data on litter dynamics.
In the context of marine litter monitoring, reporting the weight of beached litter can contribute to a better understanding of pollution sources and support clean-up activities. However, the litter scaling task requires considerable effort and specific equipment. This experimental study proposes and evaluates three methods to estimate beached litter weight from aerial images, employing different levels of litter categorization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMultirotor drones can be efficiently used to monitor macro-litter in coastal and riverine environments. Litter on beaches, dunes and riverbanks, along with floating litter on coastal and river waters, can be spotted and mapped from aerial drone images. Items detection and classification are prone to image resolution, which is expressed in terms of Ground Sampling Distance (GSD).
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