Marine Litter Predictive Mapping

The aim of this pilot project is to develop a shoreline map to define coastal areas with different likelihood of accumulating beach litter. This will be done by collecting information at selected locations and, using readily available digital georeferenced information of the coastline, developing a model that allows the prediction of the accumulation likelihood along the whole of the coast. Such a map will provide important information to calculate the total quantities of marine litter along the coast, and it will serve as a tool in planning beach cleaning campaigns and selection of representative locations for beach litter monitoring. In this version of the pilot maps will be developed for the Southern Coast of Norway. Assuming that the pilot project performs well, the approach used could be upscaled and replicated elsewhere.

Faculty Supervisor:

Claudio Aporta

Student:

Partner:

University of Agder

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

University:

Dalhousie University

Program:

Globalink Research Award