[ad_1]
An AI system has detected plastic pollution in the sea by analyzing images of satellites orbiting the earth.
The scientists behind the technique say it is the first time that plastic patches have been detected in coastal waters through satellites.
The system studies images collected by Sentinel-2 satellites from the European Space Agency to detect debris floating in the world’s oceans. These objects absorb and reflect light to produce a “spectral signature” in data that contains clues about what they are.
Researchers at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK then trained an algorithm to classify different objects by detecting differences in their spectral signatures.
[Read: This AI system predicts air pollution before it happens]
They then ran the algorithm on images of seas surrounding Canada, Scotland, Ghana, and Vietnam. On average, the system differentiated between plastics and natural materials such as algae with 86% accuracy.
The team now plans to refine the technique to accurately detect floating patches in murky coastal waters and large river waters.
Eventually, they hope the method will be combined with drones to monitor plastic litter and support cleanup operations. But they add that the only way to clean up our polluted oceans is to dramatically reduce the amount of plastic we produce.
Posted on April 23, 2020 – 17:21 UTC
[ad_2]
