Abstract
Abstract. With the Philippines ranking as the third largest source of plastics that end up in the oceans, there is a need to further explore methodologies that will become an aid in plastic waste removal from the ocean. Manila Bay is a natural harbor in the Philippines that serves as the center of different economic activities. However, the bay is also threatened with plastic pollution due to increasing population and industrial activities. BASECO is one of the areas in Manila Bay where clean-up activities are focused as this is where trash accumulates. Sentinel-2 images are provided free of charge by the European Commission's Copernicus Programme. Satellite images from June 2019 to May 2020 were inspected, then cloud-free images were downloaded. After downloading and pre-processing, spectral data of different types of plastic such as shipping pouch, bubble wrap, styrofoam, PET bottle, sando bag and snack packaging that were measured by a spectrometer during a fieldwork by the Development of Integrated Mapping, Monitoring, and Analytical Network System for Manila Bay and Linked Environments (project MapABLE) were utilized in the selection of training data. Then, indices such as the Normalized Vegetation Index (NDVI), Floating Debris Index (FDI) and Plastic Index (PI) from previous studies were analyzed for further separation of classes used as training data. These training data served as an input to the two supervised classification methods, Naive Bayes and Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering (MTMF). Both methods were validated by reports and articles from Philippine agencies indicating the spots where trash frequently accumulates.
Highlights
1.1 Background of the StudyPlastics have been studied and explored since 1284
The problem with plastic pollution has existed for years, there is little information that is available with regards to plastic wastes monitoring due to the limited resources and studies in the Philippines
This study aims to apply recent methodologies on the use of Remote Sensing in the identification of potential sites suffering from plastic pollution through the utilization of opensource satellite images in order to contribute to the small number of studies regarding local marine debris in the Philippines
Summary
1.1 Background of the StudyPlastics have been studied and explored since 1284. As stated by ACS (1993), Dr Leo Baekland’s invention of synthetic plastic in 1907 has opened doors leading to the Age of Plastic, an industry that was able to employ 60 million people and more. The Philippines contributes ~0.28-0.75 million tons of plastic into the marine environment (Jambeck et al, 2015), making the country one of the most significant contributors of plastic waste to the ocean (Lebreton et al, 2017). Managed plastic waste has a high risk of polluting bodies of water such as the ocean and river. Pasig River has ranked 8 out of 20 top polluting rivers in a study conducted by Lebreton (2017) which estimated the river contributing 38,800 tonnes of plastic wastes to oceans annually. The ability of remote sensing to provide uniform and wide coverage areas will help stakeholders identify areas with plastic pollution efficiently and lower expenses
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