Remote Sensing of Plastic Marine Litter by Means of Fluorescence LIDAR

Plastic marine litter is a global environmental challenge which should rely on several remote sensing techniques for detection and monitoring from local to global scale. Here we investigate the use of the fluorescence LIDAR technique to detect and characterise submerged plastics in the marine environment. The results of laboratory and at-sea experiments highlighted the capability of the fluorescence LIDAR technique to provide a spectral characterization of several types of plastics and to detect it when the latter is submerged in the first layers of the water column.