Press Release

July 19, 2024
  • Water & Soil

Release of the Guidelines for Harmonizing Marine Litter Monitoring Methods Using Remote Sensing

  1. The Ministry of the Environment (MOE), Japan, released the Guidelines for Harmonizing Marine Litter Monitoring Methods Using Remote Sensing Technology after discussions with Japanese and foreign experts in order to further improve the comprehensiveness and efficiency of marine litter monitoring, including litter drifting ashore.
  2. These guidelines summarize the basic preparations for monitoring using remote sensing technology, how to select a method according to the purpose, and the maturity level, issues, and prospects of survey and monitoring methods. In the first edition, an annex describes specific survey methods using drones.  
  3. MOE Japan will continue to contribute to implementing effective countermeasures against plastic pollution and encourage further data accumulation and utilization through these guidelines.

■Background

There is a growing international interest in addressing marine litter, including plastics, and discussions are underway at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on the creation of an international legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution. Under these circumstances, the need for monitoring is emphasized as a means of establishing scientific knowledge to serve as a basis for planning and assessing countermeasures, and the establishment of research/monitoring methods that enable continuous and efficient monitoring over wide areas is essential. Therefore, in order to further improve the comprehensiveness and efficiency of marine litter monitoring, MOE Japan has developed new international guidelines for marine litter monitoring and image analysis methods using remote sensing technology. Such technology has been increasingly studied in recent years, and relevant knowledge and experience are being accumulated.

The Guidelines (ver.1.0)
 Chapter I Introduction
 ・Background
 ・Structure of the guidelines
 ・Definition and terminology
 ・Purpose of the guidelines
 ・Scope of the guidelines
 Chapter II Purpose of monitoring and how to select the survey methods
 ・Purpose of monitoring
 ・How to select the monitoring methods
 ・Overview of monitoring methods to meet policy-related issues.
 Chapter Ⅲ Monitoring methods
 ・Technological maturity of current monitoring methods
 ・Current technical difficulties and future steps
 ・Future revision of the guidelines

Annex: Planning, preparation, and implementation of monitoring/survey for each remote sensing technology, and analysis and publication of survey data

 Section I: Plan, preparation, and implementation of monitoring surveys for each remote sensing technology
  1.1 Beach litter monitoring survey using UAV
   ・Survey planning and preparation
   ・Survey implementation 

 Section II: Survey data analysis and publication
  2.1 Data analysis
   ・Detection of beach litter from images
   ・Quantification of beach litter
  2.2 Data publication
   ・Data unit
   ・Data publication

Appendix 1: Result of demonstration test for beach litter survey using UAVs

■Expected Effects

・Improved efficiency of marine litter surveys by saving manpower
・Enable a survey in inaccessible areas such as complicated coastlines, as well as in broader areas to cover the pathways from land to sea areas

■Reference

Ministry of the Environment, Japan-Policies-Marine Litter
https://www.env.go.jp/en/water/index_00002.html