Simulating Marine Litter observations from space to support Operations Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Emsley ◽  
Manuel Arias ◽  
Théodora Papadopoulou ◽  
François-Régis Martin-Lauzer
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Operations Research ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Wind Waves ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Marine Litter ◽  
Model Components ◽  
River Mouths ◽  
Sentinel 2

<p>An breadboard for end-to-end (E2E) Marine Litter Optical Performance Simulations (ML-OPSI) is being designed in the frame of the ESA Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) Campaign to support Earth Observation (EO) scientists with the design of computational experiments for Operations Research. The ML-OPSI breadboard will estimate Marine Litter signal at Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) from a set of Bottom-Of-Atmosphere (BOA) scenarios representing the various case studies by the community (e.g., windrows, frontal areas, river mouths, sub-tropical gyres), coming from synthetic data (computer-simulated) or from real observations. It is a modular, pluggable and extensible framework, promoting re-use and be adapted for different missions, sensors and scenarios.</p><p>The breadboard consists of (a) the OPSI components for the simulation i.e. the process of using a model to study the characteristics of the system by manipulating variables and by studying the properties of the model allowing an evaluation to optimise performance and make predictions about the real system; and (b) the Marine Litter model components for the detection of marine litter. It shall consider the changes caused in the water reflectance and properties due to marine litter, exploiting gathered information of plastic polymers, different viewing geometries, and atmospheric conditions as naturally occurring. The modules of the breadboard include a Scenario Builder Module (SB) with maximum spatial resolution and best modelling as possible of the relevant physical properties, which for spectral sensors could include high spatial resolution and high spectral density/resolution BOA radiance simulations in the optical to SWIR bands; a Radiative Transfer Module (RTM) transforming water-leaving to TOA reflectance for varying atmospheric conditions and observational geometries; a Scene Generator Module (SGM) which could use Sentinel-2, Landsat, or PRISMA data as reference or any other instrument as pertinent; a Performance Assessment Module (PAM) for ML detection that takes into account the variability of the atmosphere, the sunlight & skylight at BOA, the sea-surface roughness with trains of wind waves & swells, sea-spray (whitecaps), air bubbles in the mixed layer, marine litter dynamics as well as instrumental noise to assess marine litter detection feasibility.</p><p>Marine Litter scenarios of reference shall be built based on in-situ campaigns, to reflect the true littering conditions at each case, both in spatial distribution and composition. The breadboard shall be validated over artificial targets at sea in field campaigns as relevant. This might include spectral measurements from ASD, on-field radiometers, and cameras on UAVs, concomitant with Copernicus Sentinel-2 acquisitions. Combined, they can be used to estimate atmospheric contribution and assess performance of the testes processing chain.</p><p>This activity collaborates on the ““Remote Sensing of Marine Litter and Debris” IOCCG taskforce.</p>

BEWATS: BEACH WASTE TRACKING SYSTEM USING SATELLITE, UAV’s and MARINE DYNAMICS MODELS. 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omjyoti Dutta ◽  
Beatriz Revilla-Romero ◽  
Adrian Sanz-Díaz ◽  
Fernando Martin-Rodriguez ◽  
Orentino Mojon-Ojea ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
Tracking System ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Earth Observation ◽  
Machine Learning Techniques ◽  
Marine Litter ◽  
North West ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Dynamics Models ◽  
Sentinel 2

<p>Marine litter is a growing problem that advances parallel to economic and industrial development and seriously affects ecosystems. One of the most abundant pollutants are plastics. The BEWATS project focuses on innovative tools for remote marine litter control and management through satellite and UAV’s. The areas of study are currently at the Vigo coast in Galicia (North-West of Spain). In this area, there are many high natural value beaches including Nature Reserve and part of a National Park. These beaches are receiving an increasing amount of marine litter, mainly plastic, helped by strong currents in the area. Every few months, these beaches are clean and the collected litter information tracked. In this context, the BEWATS project concentrates on tracking the possible path through which marine litter reaches the area of interest. In this presentation, we will discuss how this is achieved by data fusion from UAV imagery, marine dynamics model simulations and Earth-observation satellite data (Sentinel-2). To detect possible marine litter, we have developed a novel synthetic data-based approach to marine litter detection using Sentinel-2 images and machine learning techniques. Within this approach, one can classify and quantify according to pixel-level litter fraction present. We have validated our approach with existing open-sourced available datasets.  </p><p>The BEWATS project is led by Vigo University, which provides UAV’s imagery, and the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) provides marine dynamics models for tracking waste routes and delineation of waste concentration zones. In this context, GMV provides Earth observation based solution of detecting marine litter. BEWATS is founded by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.</p>

Potential of Arabic documentary sources for reconstructing past climate in the western Mediterranean region from AD 680 to 1815

The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362110332
Author(s):  
Yassin Meklach ◽  
Chantal Camenisch ◽  
Abderrahmane Merzouki ◽  
Ricardo Garcia Herrera
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Drought Conditions ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Climate Proxies

Archival records and historical documents offer direct observation of weather and atmospheric conditions and have the highest temporal and spatial resolution, and precise dating, of the available climate proxies. They also provide information about variables such as temperature, precipitation and climate extremes, as well as floods, droughts and storms. The present work studied Arab-Islamic documentary sources covering the western Mediterranean region (documents written by Arab-Islamic historians that narrate social, political and religious history) available for the period AD 680–1815. They mostly provide information on hydrometeorological events. In Iberia the most intense droughts were reported during AD 747–753, AD 814–822, AD 846–847, AD 867–874 and AD 914–915 and in the Maghreb AD 867–873, AD 898–915, AD 1104–1147, AD 1280–1340 and AD 1720–1815 had prevalent drought conditions. Intense rain episodes are also reported.

scholarly journals MANAGEMENT EFFECTS ON GROUND COVER <q>CLUMPINESS</q>: SCALING FROM FIELD TO SENTINEL-2 COVER ESTIMATES

2017 ◽  
Vol XLII-3/W2 ◽  
pp. 183-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Scarth ◽  
R. Trevithick
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Field Data ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Management Practice ◽  
Spatial Arrangement ◽  
Practice Change ◽  
Grazing Land ◽  
Land Condition ◽  
Sentinel 2

Significant progress has been made in the development of cover data and derived products based on remotely sensed fractional cover information and field data across Australia, and these cover data sets are now used for quantifying and monitoring grazing land condition. The availability of a dense time-series of nearly 30 years of cover data to describe the spatial and temporal patterns in landscape changes over time can help with monitoring the effectiveness of grazing land management practice change. With the advent of higher spatial resolution data, such as that provided by the Copernicus Sentinel 2 series of satellites, we can look beyond reporting purely on cover amount and more closely at the operational monitoring and reporting on spatial arrangement of cover and its links with land condition. We collected high spatial resolution cover transects at 20&amp;thinsp;cm intervals over the Wambiana grazing trials in the Burdekin catchment in Queensland, Australia. Spatial variance analysis was used to determine the cover autocorrelation at various support intervals. Coincident Sentinel-2 imagery was collected and processed over all the sites providing imagery to link with the field data. We show that the spatial arrangement and temporal dynamics of cover are important indicators of grazing land condition for both productivity and water quality outcomes. The metrics and products derived from this research will assist land managers to prioritize investment and practice change strategies for long term sustainability and improved water quality, particularly in the Great Barrier Reef catchments.

scholarly journals Meteorology in field artillery ballistic calculations

2021 ◽  
Vol 2090 (1) ◽  
pp. 012149
Author(s):  
M Mendel
Keyword(s):  
Atmospheric Pressure ◽  
Open Space ◽  
Meteorological Parameters ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Single Probe ◽  
Atmospheric Data

Abstract The most important meteorological data are:ambient temperature, precipitation quantity, air humidity, amount and type of clouds, atmospheric pressure, wind direction and speed, visibility, weather phenomena. These coefficients impact the effectiveness of various combat activities, especially those conducted in an open space. Knowledge of future weather conditions is essential for planning the location, calculating times, choice of means, and other aspects relevant to the upcoming operations. Taking weather conditions into account is vital, specifically when it comes to planning combat operations, where the accuracy in cooperation is of paramount importance. Rocket forces and artillery is a particular type of armed forces where weather conditions are critical. The effectiveness of artillery depends on ballistic calculation precision, and so knowledge of atmospheric conditions is fundamental. Atmospheric data are collected from sounding using a single probe attached to a balloon. It is generally known that particular meteorological parameters change in a smooth spatial manner depending on various coefficients. Information about the atmosphere collected by a single probe may be insufficient, due to the possibility of a balloon drifting away from the area of interest, and the calculations are based on data received from its probe. In this paper, I will suggest a method for preparing artillery use meteorologically, which takes into account the distribution of particular meteorological coefficients over a given area.

scholarly journals Evaluation of TsHARP Utility for Thermal Sharpening of Sentinel-3 Satellite Images Using Sentinel-2 Visual Imagery

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 2304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Huryna ◽  
Yafit Cohen ◽  
Arnon Karnieli ◽  
Natalya Panov ◽  
William P. Kustas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Primary Methods ◽  
Thermal Images ◽  
Spatially Distributed ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Sentinel 2

A spatially distributed land surface temperature is important for many studies. The recent launch of the Sentinel satellite programs paves the way for an abundance of opportunities for both large area and long-term investigations. However, the spatial resolution of Sentinel-3 thermal images is not suitable for monitoring small fragmented fields. Thermal sharpening is one of the primary methods used to obtain thermal images at finer spatial resolution at a daily revisit time. In the current study, the utility of the TsHARP method to sharpen the low resolution of Sentinel-3 thermal data was examined using Sentinel-2 visible-near infrared imagery. Compared to Landsat 8 fine thermal images, the sharpening resulted in mean absolute errors of ~1 °C, with errors increasing as the difference between the native and the target resolutions increases. Part of the error is attributed to the discrepancy between the thermal images acquired by the two platforms. Further research is due to test additional sites and conditions, and potentially additional sharpening methods, applied to the Sentinel platforms.

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