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Publication
The role of agriculture in marine plastic pollution
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| 6.74 MB | Adobe PDF |
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Abstract(s)
The world consumption of plastics in agriculture amounts yearly to approximately 7.4 million tons and forecasts expect it to increase to 9.5 million tons in 2030, but this data is still limited. Conventional and selective polymers such as PE, PVC, EVA and nets are used to optimize crop production efficiency in the Mediterranean coast. The major drawback starts when the material has reached its useful time and is abandoned and dumped near dry river bed channels where it accumulates as it waits for runoff to wash them towards the sea. Since there is a lot of data missing on the amounts, composition and environmental fate, this research aims to fill the above mentioned substantial gap by performing a research on the Agriculture Plastic Waste life cycle and current management. Once the main issues were identified, a proposal for monitoring sources and fluxes was studied using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) imagery combined with GIS systems as a tool for plastic litter detection, and fluxes on hotspots as they represent a key source of plastic litter accumulation before it reaches the marine systems if actions are to be taken.
For the latter, imagery data acquired by UAVs and combined with in situ surveillance to detect mismanaged macroplastics location due to illegal dumping on dry riverbeds in Castell de Ferro, a town located in the tropical coast of Granada in Spain which is as famous for its tourism as for the plastic greenhouses. The study area, was considered suitable for these purposes because it involves a dry riverbed constantly impacted by APW dumped or abandoned by farmers nearby.
The image data acquired was then processed and validated with in situ identification of the macroplastics. As a result, the GIS tool was considered to deliver the necessary data for accurate plastic litter assessment and detection. This study was able to detect agriculture macro-plastics showing success performance over 95%. As for the management measures, producers must design and manufacture reusable and recyclable agriculture plastics. To further the process, economic and financial incentives on RDI programs on APW need to be developed in order to avoid or reduce to the extent hazardous substances use on plastic manufacture.
Description
Keywords
Remote sensing Intensive farming Greenhouses Multispectral sensor Marine litter Agroplastic