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Researchers from the Ecosystems group led by Javier Gilabert at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) have demonstrated the effectiveness of a new methodology, combining numerical models and underwater robotics, to find objects under the sea and have developed a submerged garbage map.

The researchers, who have been working on the Rómulo project for a year, funded by the Biodiversity Foundation and Ecoembes, have developed a specific program, based on a hydrodynamic and three-dimensional model (ROMS) of marine currents, to detect the agglomeration of garbage.

So far, the waste at sea could only be located on the surface and in deep areas, through aggressive dragging for the ecosystem or with divers, with important limitations of time, resources and depth.

"Research has shown the effectiveness of this methodology to detect waste in a useful and effective way, which can be used and applied to other fields of Oceanography and that, above all, could help in the future to clean our seas of garbage," says Francisco López Castejón, Researcher of the project.

To verify the existence of garbage and to delimit the coordinates of its location, researchers have used an autonomous underwater vehicle that has traveled the depths and recorded the funds without being operated by remote control.

Thanks to the software developed in this project to identify and classify garbage, a map of submerged garbage was developed in the Port of Cartagena.

"In the beginning we chose the Mar Menor, but the low visibility of the waters prevented the recording of funds with sufficient quality," explains López Castejón.

Specifically, in the area of ​​El Espalmador, in a perimeter of 260 meters, they have detected more than 200 objects, among which cans and plastics predominate.

"Most of these objects came from the Mediterranean and had been dragged to the port," says López Castejón.

The researchers have collected on the website of the project (http://ocean.upct.es/romulo) images and videos of the objects they have detected in the waters of the Port of Cartagena and next to the island Perdiguera, in the Mar Menor .

Source: UPCT