Beached and Floating Litter Surveys by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Operational Analogies and Differences

The abundance of litter pollution in the marine environment has been increasing globally. Remote sensing techniques are valuable tools to advance knowledge on abundance, distribution and dynamics. Images collected by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV, aka drones) highly efficient map monitor local beached (BL) floating (FL) items. In this work, operational insights carry out both BL FL surveys using UAVs detailly described. particular, flight planning deployment, along with image products processing analysis, reported compared. Furthermore, analogies differences between UAV-based mapping discussed, focus challenges related item detection recognition. Given efficiency UAV FL, remote technique can replace traditional methods for monitoring, further improving dynamics environment. This communication aims at helping researchers performing optimized drone-based surveys.