On January 17, the technical team from Venice Lagoon Plastic Free met with colleagues from the OGS National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics, as well as the Science, Technology and Innovation Unit (STI) of UNESCO ICTP (UNESCO Category 1 Institute), at the OGS Offices.
This meeting was for an internal workshop focusing on Marine Litter Monitoring and the circular economy. OGS is an internationally recognized, multidisciplinary research institute specialized in Earth Science. The NODC (National Oceanographic Data Centre) group at OGS is the scientific coordinator for EMODnet Chemistry.
VLPF, in collaboration with INFORDATA, holds the conceptual and technical ownership of the marine litter monitoring app under development in the frame of the HEUROPE REMEDIES project.
This app is a multi-layered service with a digitally integrated cloud platform featuring an open, scalable, and modular architecture. It acquires, stores, and aggregates data on marine litter pollution collected digitally by drones and other automated devices or manually by persons at beach clean-ups, scuba dives, or port reception facilities.
The beach litter monitoring app, extensively used by VLPF and capable of generating EMODnet-compatible data, for which VLPF is a provider, represents nearly four years of challenging fieldwork, building on the professional efforts of INFORDATA and VLPF senior team involved in the H2020 MAELSTROM and currently in the HEUROPE REMEDIES projects.
This team includes Dr. Paolo Franceschetti, Dr. Martina Bocci, Dr. Davide Poletto, Mr. Gherardo Toso, and Mr. Marko Petelin.
During the meeting, the team clarified some issues related to the metadata aspects and interactively introduced the app to the OGS team.
Moreover, as the provider of macro-litter monitoring data, VLPF clarified elements related to validating data acquired in recent years in the Venice Lagoon.
VLPF also promoted some solutions related to marine litter removal and circular economy, such as the River Cleaning of MOLD (REMEDIES), and the SeaCat (SeaClear2.0), to name a few.