Student information

MSs thesis topic: Plastic Plants: Using water hyacinths as a proxy todetect plastic pollution from space

Tropical rivers are both home to the invasive water hyacinths (WHs), and the majority of the world’s freshwater plastic pollution. Recent studies found that up to 80% the total floating plastic pollution can be carried by WHs. Plastic items are too small to be seen from space, but WHs can easily be detected. In this thesis you will explore using WHs as a proxy for plastic pollution in rivers.

You will contribute to an ongoing project that collected in situ and remote sensing data on WHs and plastic pollution in the Saigon river. In this thesis you will focus on testing available methods to new river systems globally.

Relevance to research/projects at GRS or other groups

  • This thesis is supervised by Tim van Emmerik (HWM) and Marc Rußwurm (GRS). Collaboration with other experts will be encouraged.

Objectives

  • Improve current WH detection algorithms by focusing on one or more new river systems;
  • Determine the minimal detectable WH size and coverage for various remote sensing products and detection algorithms;
  • Optional: collect field data for calibration and validation;
  • Combine remote sensing based datasets of WH with environmental and hydrological data to explain the spatiotemporal dynamics.

Requirements

  • Required: experience in remote sensing data analysis (e.g. remote sensing software, spectral analysis, indices);
  • Optional: affinity with fieldwork (in and around rivers);
  • Optional: interest in (plastic) pollution and/or vegetation monitoring

Expected reading list before starting the thesis research

  • Janssens, N. et al. (2022). Rivers running green: water hyacinth invasion monitored from space. Environmental Research Letters, 17(4), 044069.
  • Schreyers, L., et al. (2022, July). Direct and indirect river plastic detection from space. In IGARSS 2022-2022 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 5539-5542). IEEE.
  • Schreyers, L., et al. (2024). Drifting Plants Retain River Plastics. Available at SSRN 4692870.

Theme(s): Sensing & measuring