California Trash Data Dive 2018
Jan 18, 2019
On November 16, 2018, the project team helped to coordinate a Trash Data Dive convened by the State Water Board’s Office of Information Management and Analysis. Hosted at SFEI’s offices, the Trash Data Dive was well-attended and drew participants from all over California to discuss the opportunities to address entrenched problems with respect to trash-related information. Representatives from Regional and State Water Boards gathered together with those from other state agencies, non-profits, municipalities, private consultants, and the interested public to develop new concepts and visualizations using available data. Representatives from SFEI and the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project presented several times on a trash-related project they are co-leading. Audience members expressed interest in trash monitoring, and in particular on the use of drones and machine learning. In the context of a data-focused event, the project team was able to address both conventional and novel techniques to collect data in ways that preserved the integrity and credibility of the resulting datasets. This information about monitoring trash provided a useful counterpoint to the visualizations generated by the other teams. The Data Dive included a robust “hacking session,” and an opportunity to share innovative results. Participants detailed concepts spanning the gamut, from identifying plastics in multiple environments, to tobacco-pollution-focused problem-solving, to ideas for addressing trash among the homeless and overburdened communities, to a “power portal” designed to gather and distribute heterogeneous data types. The ideas generated and the opportunity for networking among like-minded individuals across many disciplines made this event valuable for the project team and participants. We welcome you to track our progress as the team proceeds in its assessments through the rest of the project: TrashMonitoring.org
Associated Staff:
Programs and Focus Areas:
Clean Water Program
Environmental Informatics Program
Related Projects, News, and Events:
California Trash Monitoring Methods Project (Project)
The California Ocean Protection Council (OPC), in close partnership with the State Water Board, has recognized the importance of standard methods for trash monitoring and has funded this project. The Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) and San Francisco Bay Estuary Institute (SFEI) have partnered up to test multiple trash monitoring methods with a goal of developing a library of methods with known levels of precision, accuracy, and cross-comparability of results, and linking these methods to specific management questions.
Statewide Plastics Monitoring Plan & Strategy (Project)
Plastics, in their various chemical composition and sizes, pose serious challenges to the vitality of California's ecosystems. Once escaped into the environment, plastic contamination persists for very long periods and breaks down into ever smaller pieces, becoming more readily available to wildlife and populations who live, work, and play in those same habitats.
SFEI Unoccupied Aerial Systems (Project)
SFEI has developed novel, cost-effective solutions to costly problems. In particular, our work with drones or Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) has yielded very promising results. We have used UAS to address a number of scientific challenges and use cases. SFEI applications of UAS include, wetland monitoring, restoration monitoring, sediment volume estimations, and trash surveys leveraging machine learning algorithms. In the course of our use of UAS, we have derived some useful analyses on the technology that lend the resulting products credibility and reliability.