Project name:
MICROPLASMA – MIcro and maCRO PLAStic pollution Monitoring with Advanced technologies
Project description:
The main purpose of MICROPLASMA project is to set up a monitoring system of plastic wastes (macro and microplastics) on beaches of Barletta city and along Ofanto river (South Italy). The microplastics monitoring will be realized by creating a floating station equipped with an innovative selective sampler of microplastics that will perform a continuous, automatic and systematic sampling of MPs in order to understand possible spatial and temporal trends related to the presence of urban and industrial wastewater and to rainy events. The system will be also connected to a multi-parametric probe that will give information about the chemical-physical parameters of the water. The validation and acquisition of data will also be carried out using remote sensing techniques based on hyperspectral and thermal airborne sensors that will allow an analysis of the spatial and temporal dynamics of some water quality parameters such as turbidity and sediment dispersion at the Ofanto mouth. The macroplastic monitoring system will be based on the “visual census” method. Information on the description, GPS position, photos and videos of the observed waste will be collected by citizens and associations through the use of a smartphone application made ad hoc.