A three-day summit to advance the study of marine litter and floating matter using remote sensing and space-based approaches 

An international workshop sponsored by The European Space Agency, Future Earth, and the Labex CaPPA through IMT Nord Europe;  supported by the international program SOLAS, the Center for Colloid and Surface Science (CSGI), and hosted by the Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Pharmacy of the University of Siena, Italy, in the historical settings of the Santa Chiara Lab in Siena city center.

This 3-day interdisciplinary workshop welcomes researchers and experts across communities to tackle knowledge gaps in plastic pollution monitoring that remote sensing could contribute to fill in, address challenges as well as the need to advance the development of space-based and remote sensing techniques to measure  plastics, litter and other pollutants in water and its proximity, thereby identifying hot spots for early mitigation strategies.

Keynote speeches and presentations are accompanied by breakout sessions, the core of the workshop, to discuss and move forward the detection and potential intervention measures for marine litter and floating matter starting from the source. 

With plastic production and disposal projected to increase, action is required to improve our capability to monitor this anthropogenic phenomenon across the land-to-sea continuum to contribute to the definition of better and more targeted strategies aimed at preventing much of the litter to end up in the oceans. Remote Sensing techniques have the potential to support the detection, identification, quantification and tracking of litter from source to sea, allowing for monitoring over wide areas and with a high temporal resolution. Marine plastic litter is often found in areas of high accumulation with other types of floating matter, as litter windrows and biomass blooms, potentially suitable as a proxy for satellite-based detection of plastic pollution. The advancement of remote sensing and satellite-based techniques to monitor marine litter might be extended to a wider variety of marine contaminants, including oil spills, facilitating detection and remediation approaches. 

Scientific Committee

Luisa Galgani, University of Siena (Italy)

Liselotte Tinel, IMT-Nord Europe (France)

Stefano Aliani, National Research Council, Institute of Marine Sciences CNR-ISMAR (Italy)

Paolo Corradi, European Space Agency (The Netherlands)

Sophie Hebden, ESA-Future Earth (UK)

Local Organizing Committee

Luisa Galgani, University of Siena (Italy)

Amedeo Boldrini, University of Siena (Italy)  

Alessio Polvani, University of Siena (Italy)  

Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Siena

Contacts: 

luisa.galgani@unisi.it

liselotte.tinel@imt-nord-europe.fr

segreteria.dbcf@unisi.it 

Let us know if you'll be attending! 

Please register by 30/03/2025