Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Large-scale detection of marine debris in coastal areas with Sentinel-2

Researchers built a deep learning model to detect floating marine debris in coastal areas using satellite imagery from the Sentinel-2 program. The system achieved strong detection accuracy across multiple test sites and can monitor large stretches of coastline regularly. The tool could help environmental agencies track and respond to marine plastic pollution at a scale that manual surveys cannot match.

2023 iScience 28 citations
Article Tier 2

Automatic Detection and Identification of Floating Marine Debris Using Multispectral Satellite Imagery

Researchers developed a machine learning approach using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and extreme gradient boosting to automatically detect and distinguish floating plastic debris from other marine materials like driftwood and seaweed.

2023 IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 43 citations
Article Tier 2

Towards Detecting Floating Objects on a Global Scale with Learned Spatial Features Using Sentinel 2

Researchers developed a machine learning approach using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to detect floating plastic debris and marine litter on a global scale, demonstrating that learned spatial features can improve detection of large aggregations of floating objects on water surfaces.

2021 ISPRS annals of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences 28 citations
Article Tier 2

Finding Plastic Patches in Coastal Waters using Optical Satellite Data

Researchers demonstrated for the first time that floating macroplastic patches can be detected in optical data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellites, validating detections against ground-truth observations and identifying characteristics that distinguish plastic from other floating material.

2020 Scientific Reports 304 citations
Article Tier 2

Advanced Classification of Marine Pollutants Using Sentinel-2 Multispectral Thermal Imaging and Vision Transformer for Enhanced Water Quality Assessment

This study used satellite multispectral imaging from the Sentinel-2 platform combined with a Vision Transformer machine learning model to automatically classify different types of marine pollutants — including plastics, algae, and oil — from aerial imagery. The AI-based approach significantly outperformed traditional classification methods and could detect plastic debris patches across large ocean areas. Automated large-scale detection of marine plastic pollution from satellites could transform the way we monitor and respond to ocean plastic contamination.

2025 Global NEST Journal 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Detection of Waste Plastics in the Environment: Application of Copernicus Earth Observation data

Researchers used free Copernicus Earth observation satellite data and machine learning to detect waste plastic in marine and terrestrial environments at a large scale. The classifier was trained on Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data and performed well for detecting larger plastic accumulations. Satellite-based detection could enable continuous, wide-area monitoring of plastic pollution at a fraction of the cost of ground surveys.

2022 Preprints.org 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Coastal Marine Debris Detection and Density Mapping With Very High Resolution Satellite Imagery

Researchers used high-resolution satellite imagery combined with machine learning to detect and map coastal marine debris density in southern Japan, finding that satellite-based methods can estimate debris amounts and types on beaches with reasonable accuracy.

2022 IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing 25 citations
Article Tier 2

Detection of Waste Plastics in the Environment: Application of Copernicus Earth Observation Data

Researchers developed a machine learning classifier using free Copernicus satellite data to detect plastic waste — including greenhouses, tyres, and waste sites — in both aquatic and terrestrial environments, achieving high accuracy and enabling low-cost large-scale plastic pollution mapping.

2022 Remote Sensing 25 citations
Article Tier 2

A Combination of Machine Learning Algorithms for Marine Plastic Litter Detection Exploiting Hyperspectral PRISMA Data

Researchers applied a combination of machine learning algorithms to hyperspectral satellite imagery from the PRISMA satellite to detect marine plastic litter along coastlines and ocean surfaces. The multi-algorithm approach improved detection accuracy over single-model methods and demonstrated the potential for satellite-based monitoring of ocean plastic pollution at scale.

2022 Remote Sensing 46 citations
Article Tier 2

Application of Remote Sensing for the Detection and Monitoring of Microplastics in the Coastal Zone of the Colombian Caribbean

Researchers explored using remote sensing technology, including Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and machine learning algorithms, to detect and monitor microplastic pollution along the Colombian Caribbean coast. The study found that combining multispectral satellite data with computational models shows promise for systematic, large-scale monitoring of coastal microplastic contamination in regions where ground-level surveillance remains limited.

2025 Microplastics 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Marine Debris Detection in Satellite Surveillance Using Attention Mechanisms

Researchers developed an approach combining satellite imagery with attention-based deep learning models to detect marine debris from space. The study found that a model using combined spatial and channel attention (CBAM) achieved the best performance, with a 77% detection score, outperforming other approaches tested. These findings suggest that AI-enhanced satellite surveillance could become a practical tool for monitoring ocean plastic pollution at scale.

2024 IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing 27 citations
Article Tier 2

Investigating Detection of Floating Plastic Litter from Space Using Sentinel-2 Imagery

Researchers tested whether Sentinel-2 satellite imagery could detect floating plastic debris on the ocean surface, using a 3 by 10 meter plastic bottle target deployed off Cyprus. A newly developed Plastic Index proved more effective than existing indices at identifying the target, offering a promising tool for large-scale ocean plastic monitoring from space.

2020 Remote Sensing 168 citations
Article Tier 2

Remotely Sensing the Source and Transport of Marine Plastic Debris in Bay Islands of Honduras (Caribbean Sea)

Researchers used high-resolution Sentinel-2 satellite imagery over Bay Islands, Honduras (2014–2019) and found that patches of floating macroplastics are detectable from space, validating satellite detections against field surveys and demonstrating potential for large-scale marine plastic monitoring.

2020 Remote Sensing 92 citations
Article Tier 2

Amphitrite v1.0: An underwater database for marine debris and biodiversity

Researchers created Amphitrite v1.0, an underwater database of 16 labeled categories of marine debris and biodiversity images suitable for training computer vision models for automated marine litter detection, validated against the latest YOLO object recognition architectures.

2025 Figshare
Article Tier 2

An Image Analysis of Coastal Debris Detection -Detection of microplastics using deep learning-

Researchers developed a deep learning-based coastal debris detection system using YOLOv7 and the SAHI vision library to identify microplastics in image data collected from shorelines. The system demonstrated effective detection performance and offers a scalable approach for automated monitoring of microplastic litter in coastal environments.

2024 Proceedings of International Conference on Artificial Life and Robotics
Article Tier 2

Remote Sensing of Sea Surface Artificial Floating Plastic Targets with Sentinel-2 and Unmanned Aerial Systems (Plastic Litter Project 2019)

Researchers tested remote sensing of floating plastic targets in a real marine environment using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and unmanned aerial systems during the 2019 Plastic Litter Project, collecting reference spectral data to help calibrate detection algorithms. The study provided a validated dataset characterizing the spectral behavior of floating plastics to support future remote monitoring efforts.

2020 Remote Sensing 105 citations
Article Tier 2

AI – Driven Marine Debris Detection for Ocean Conservation

Researchers developed an AI-driven marine debris detection system using the YOLOv8 deep learning model trained to identify plastic waste in challenging underwater conditions including low visibility and complex backgrounds. The system aims to provide scalable, automated monitoring to support ocean conservation and guide debris removal efforts.

2025
Article Tier 2

Deep-Feature-Based Approach to Marine Debris Classification

This study applied deep learning to classify marine debris from images, demonstrating that feature-based neural network approaches can effectively distinguish plastic types and other debris categories to support automated ocean monitoring.

2021 Applied Sciences 57 citations
Article Tier 2

Evaluating Microplastic Pollution Along the Dubai Coast: An Empirical Model Combining On-Site Sampling and Sentinel-2 Remote Sensing Data

Researchers collected coastal water samples from Dubai and combined laboratory spectral measurements with Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to build a model that estimates microplastic concentrations from space. The model achieved an R² of 87% and was used to map microplastic pollution trends along the Dubai coast from 2018 to 2021. This remote-sensing approach demonstrates a scalable method for monitoring coastal microplastic pollution over large areas without intensive fieldwork.

2024 Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy Water and Environment Systems 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Development of Novel Classification Algorithms for Detection of Floating Plastic Debris in Coastal Waterbodies Using Multispectral Sentinel-2 Remote Sensing Imagery

Researchers developed classification algorithms using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to detect floating plastic debris in coastal waters near Cyprus and Greece. They tested both unsupervised and supervised methods and found that a semi-supervised fuzzy c-means approach achieved the highest accuracy for identifying plastics. The study demonstrates that remote sensing technology can be an effective tool for monitoring and mapping marine plastic pollution at scale.

2021 Remote Sensing 79 citations
Article Tier 2

Monitoring of Plastic Islands in River Environment Using Sentinel-1 SAR Data

Researchers developed a method using Sentinel-1 SAR satellite data to detect and monitor plastic islands in river environments, demonstrating the potential of radar remote sensing to track plastic debris accumulation following major rain events.

2022 Remote Sensing 23 citations
Article Tier 2

Hybrid Deep Learning Approach for Marine Debris Detection in Satellite Imagery Using UNet with ResNext50 Backbone

Despite its title referencing marine debris detection, this paper develops a deep learning computer vision model for identifying marine debris in satellite imagery using a UNet architecture with a ResNext50 backbone — not a study of microplastic pollution itself. It is a remote sensing and machine learning engineering paper, and while the technology could support large-scale ocean plastic monitoring, the paper does not directly examine microplastics or their health effects.

2025 Journal of Applied Science and Technology Trends 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Automatic Identification and Classification of Marine Microplastic Pollution Based on Deep Learning and Spectral Imaging Technology

Researchers developed an AI system combining deep learning with multispectral imaging to automatically identify and classify marine microplastics, using a feature-selection method called ReliefF to reduce noise in complex ocean samples. The approach achieved high accuracy and offers a scalable solution for large-scale ocean microplastic monitoring that outperforms traditional manual inspection.

2025 Traitement du signal
Article Tier 2

Litter segmentation with LOTS dataset

Not a microplastics paper — this computer science paper presents a machine learning benchmark for detecting and segmenting beach litter (including plastic debris) in sand using deep learning image segmentation models, contributing tools that could help automate coastal pollution monitoring.

2023