GNSS-R Observations of Marine Plastic Litter in a Water Flume: An Experimental Study

Currently, eight million metric tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year, and microplastics different forms are present almost all water systems world: streams, rivers, lakes, or oceans, even our blood. Detection marine litter is an urgent task. Some works have recently reported potential GNSS-Reflectometry to detect from space. This study presents results a controlled field experiment conducted under auspices ESA at “Atlantic Basin” Deltares research institute (Delft, The Netherlands). Several types wave conditions were created: sinusoidal with JONSWAP spectrum, significant heights, plastics collected Dutch coast. Experimental show difficulty detecting based on change reflected power. However, statistical analysis GNSS-R estimated reflectivities (amplitude phase) computed very short integration times (coherent time Tcoh = 1 ms, no incoherent averaging: Nincoh 1) that it may be possible large accumulations some dampen waves, such as nets, bottles net, food wraps, bags.