• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.351-366
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• 2014

The aim of this study was to develop software for beach litter detection that includes a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and uses images taken by a micro-unmanned aerial vehicle. Videos were taken over Doomo pebble beach, Sogye pebble beach, and Heungnam sand beach on the northeast coast of Geojedo (Geoje Island), Korea. Still images of actual beach litter were obtained from the videos. The image processing involved preprocessing, morphological image processing, and image recognition. Comparison with still images showing beach litter demonstrated that the software could generally detect litter larger than 50 cm in size such as Styrofoam buoys and circular fish traps (excluding small pixel-size ropes). Combining the proposed method with the conventional surveying approach is expected to enhance the accuracy of beach litter detection. The new technique will also aid in predicting the amount of beach litter generated along coastlines, which is currently difficult to monitor.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.104-115
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• 2014

Abundance and composition of marine debris on 13 beaches of Tongyeong City, South Korea were surveyed in 2013 Autumn. The average quantity of macro debris (>25 mm) was about 30 particle/$m^2$ and that of micro debris (1 mm-25 mm) was about 26,971 particle/$m^2$. This is a very high level compared with other areas of South Korea and the other countries. Among the 7 material types of debris (styrofoam, hard plastic, fiber, metal, glass, wood and others), styrofoam composed a large portion: 75% of macro debris and 98% of micro debris. And among the 'whole' styrofoam debris items whose original volume is remained more than 50%, styrofoam buoy debris composed 93%. This result suggests that the beaches surveyed are seriously contaminated by marine debris, and most of its sources are aquaculture styrofoam buoys. Management of styrofoam buoy debris used for oyster aquaculture in Tongyeong City is important not only for Tongyeong city, but also for other areas, because Tongyeong city hosts the biggest number of oyster aquaculture areas in South Korea.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.127-136
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• 2014

When the mouth of the Nakdong River, opens its floodgate, thousands of tons of litter should flown into the South Sea, moving towards nearby coast, thus causing serious social and economic damage. For this reason, in the present study, research was performed on one certain area in northeast coast of Geoje island, which is assumed as area damaged due to rainy season and typhoon in 2012, and research for trace of movement route was implemented by using buoy to identify characteristic of movement of floating debris caused from Nakdong River. Flows related to the movement of floating debris was also identified by analyzing ocean meteorological environment. As a result of the study, total 40 tons of litter composed of grasses and trees(or plants litter) were flown into Heungnam beach on 16th, Jul which is the rainy season. Plus, the location tracking buoy, which was dropped when the typhoon SANBA was coming, was passed by southern sea of Gadeok-do and was flown into Geoje beach 1 ~ 2 days after it was dropped. The wind direction was mostly northeasterly wind around the Geoje beach at the time the buoy and floating debris were flown into northeast coast and there was common sea surface currents which was flowing into the coast.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.307-314
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• 2011

This study proposed detection method of Marine debris using unmanned aerial photography. For unmanned aerial photography, a RC(Radio Control) helicopter which has good movability and economics was used. To a camera mounting, a gimbal equipment was attached to the bottom of the RC helicopter. The gimbal equipment is very useful because it is not seriously affected by vibration and rolling. In addition, we invented that digital image processing algorithm using Matlab program for detection of marine debris from photographs. Particularly, background subtraction in invented algorithm was applied. As a result, marine debris of a variety of forms from different sand states of coast were reliably detected. In the future, monitoring using proposed method was expected to contribute that the solution to representative problem of monitoring area selecting and estimate the total litter mass over the beach. Moreover, It is considered a greater application possibility to marine environmental observations.