Marine Litter Monitoring with AI: Fostering Collaboration with EMODnet (and a webinar)

iMagine use case on Marine Litter Monitoring, led by DFKI in collaboration with OGS, will participate in the iMagine webinar series on May 8th. During this webinar, the researchers will demonstrate the operation of the Litter Assessment service developed during the project.

The service provides an operational environment on the iMagine platform to detect and quantify plastic litter floating on the water surface. It uses UAV surveys at different altitudes and employs two CNN deep neural networks to quantify and characterise the observed litter. Users can ingest drone footage of their area of interest and receive an analysis of the presence and count of litter items. 

This approach has been successfully applied in several countries through collaborations with the World Bank Group and NGOs, supporting local stakeholders and clean-up operations. 

The service offers precise, AI-driven analysis for assessing aquatic litter, enabling targeted pollution control. Moreover, it ensures consistent, standardised litter datasets by automating image processing, empowering efficient decision-making and environmental action.

The user-friendly design of the service also encourages citizen scientists to get involved, fostering widespread involvement and awareness for a cleaner aquatic environment.

The involvement of OGS in the use case and service development is crucial for providing a valuable contribution to the data collection maintained by EMODnet. 

The European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) is the European Commission (EC) in situ marine data service of the EC Directorate-General Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (EC DG MARE). Established in 2009, EMODnet is a trusted source of data and data products on in situ marine environmental and human activities, serving a diverse user base across various sectors.

The EMODnet Portal is a single access point to all EMODnet services, providing easy and free access to a wealth of marine data, metadata, and data products. Covering seven disciplinary themes – bathymetry, geology, physics, chemistry, biology, seabed habitats and human activities – EMODnet spans the entire marine environment from coast to open ocean, surface to deep seafloor, whilst also offering data and information on the Blue Economy operations, from vessel density and offshore platform sitings, to hosting EU Member State Maritime Spatial Plans.

EMODnet Chemistry is one of the thematic groups within EMODnet, coordinated by OGS. It provides easy access to marine chemical data, standardised, harmonised and validated data collections and data products for visualisation. These are relevant for the European marine environmental policies to assess the status and trends of ecosystems as covered in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). 

The MSFD Descriptor 10 concerns Marine Litter for which EMODnet Chemistry has developed and is managing the first pan-European Marine Litter Database (MLDB) on the advice of the MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and in close cooperation with relevant stakeholders in the EU, such as the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the Regional Sea Conventions and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. 

The EMODnet Chemistry Marine Litter Database is a major milestone in the harmonisation of available information at the European level, supporting the establishment of European baselines and threshold values for the MSFD. The approach for Marine Litter concerns beach litter, seafloor macrolitter data and microlitter data on the sea surface and in sediment. 

The iMagine cooperation of OGS with DFKI focuses on beach litter and arranging that the iMagine results of the Marine Litter Monitoring use case can be used for EMODnet Chemistry purposes.