The Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) launched, with the support of the Biodiversity Foundation and Ecoembes, the project “Three-dimensional identification, characterization and mapping of marine litter obtained through a combination of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) and Hydrodynamic Modeling”. The initiative has been carried out in the Mar Menor and the eastern area of the coast of Murcia, areas of the Murcian coast with a greater amount of waste.

The methodology tested in this project, through the combination of Hydrodynamic Models and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, has allowed the identification and location of litter on the seabed with little human intervention. This project covers a methodological need identified in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The integration with high-resolution and 360º cameras in an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) has allowed the development of a system, capable of automatically recording georeferenced videos of the seabed in high resolution. With this system, marine litter has been geolocated and classified – according to current legislation – in the study areas, where the oceanographic model of 3D currents ROMS (Regional Ocean Model System), with the ability to know the trajectory of a particle, determined as areas of accumulation of marine litter. During the ten campaigns carried out to test the system, photographs have been obtained of the points of accumulation of marine litter with their geographical coordinates, depth at which they are found and date of registration. To this end , software has been developed capable of merging images with the vehicle’s navigation data, which allows the frames to be extracted from the rubbish for semi-automatic classification. This application is open source, can also be used for mapping bottom species with some modifications, and can be used by networks of volunteers.