IEEE OES Plastics in the Ocean Initiative


Resources
Background
Reports
Networking
Sources
Mitigation
Meetings
Overview
Brest 2022
2022 SeaTechWeek
Virtual Working Session 2021
Marine Litter Sessions at OBPS Workshop
Brest 2019
Oceans 2019
Brest 2018

Announcements

Marine Litter Session @Sea Tech Week®

Special Session on Marine Litter @Sea Tech Week®

The IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society is organizing a special session entitled "Marine Litter: Solutions for Monitoring, Mitigation and Prevention" taking place on Sept 27, 2022 during the Sea Tech Week®, Sept. 26-30 2022, in BREST, France. The special session will precede and inform the workshop on “Marine Litter: Solutions for a Cleaner Ocean”, that will be held on Sept 28 to 29, 2022.Convenor: IEEE-OES and Laboratory for Ocean Physics and Satellite remote sensing (LOPS) (France)

While quantitative information on production and use of plastics is to some extent available, the amount and fate of plastics discarded or leaked into the environment is highly uncertain. In particular, knowledge of how much plastics, at different scales down to micro and nano levels, reaches the ocean and the pathways and fate of such plastic in the ocean remain poorly known.

A focus is needed on how science and technology could quantify the pervasiveness of marine pollution and facilitate an understanding of the mitigating impact of reducing the stock of plastics in the ocean. The goals for meeting such a challenge go through the determination of a strategy for monitoring marine litter in the ocean and develop solutions for addressing the problem.

More information on this session is available here. Note that there will be a registration fee for participation in the Sea Tech Week®. A one-day ticket (including lunch and coffee breaks) is €125 plus VAT, and here is the page that details all the information.

The main theme of the conference is: Maritime Transport: towards smarter and greener solutions. The featured country of honour is India, and the special focus this year is on women in marine science and technology.

Special Issue

The human presence in the coastal environment is increasing rapidly, accompanied by an equally rapid growth in the built environment and consumer goods in the coastal zone. An increasing fraction of the urban population is in megacities that are located in the coastal zone or in the flood plains of major rivers. The urbanization of the coastal zone is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. At the same time, the coastal zone is exposed to a changing spectrum of natural hazards originating in the atmosphere–ocean and terrestrial systems. The way coastal urban areas are developed today creates a risk with potentially significant harmful impacts for future generation. This risk could be reduced through new designs of the urban coasts that ensure the built environment is adapted to the changing spectrum of hazards and through international rules for the abandonment of urban coasts that can no longer be defended against sea encroachment. This would help to bring current actions in line with normative ethics and reduce threats to the marine biosphere and future human generations. We invite papers that address all aspects of the threats the urban coast might pose to the ocean, including the development of the urban coast, the changing coastal hazard spectrum, the risk of marine debris originating in the urban coast, the impacts this debris might have on the marine biosphere, alternatives for the design of the urban coast that would reduce this risk, and ethical challenges in governing risks to future generations in designing today’s urban coast.

Go to special issue page ...

Clean Ocean Laboratory

Satellite Activity of the UN Ocean Decade: Clean Ocean Laboratory

For more details, see the Call for Contribution and the event webpage


The Initiative convened a series of virtual working session on August 31-September 2, 2021. On each day, there were two sessions with the first session at 13:00-14:20 UTC and the second session at 14:30-15:50 UTC. For more details, see the event page ...

Working Sessions

The Initiative will convene a series of virtual working session on August 31-September 2, 2021. On each day, there will be two sessions with the first session at 13:00-14:20 UTC and the second session at 14:30-15:50 UTC. For more details, see the event page ...

Session at GEO Symposium

The IEEE/OES Plastic in the Ocean Initiative in collaboration with the GEO Blue Planet Initiative organized a parallel session on “Building a Community to Address the Challenge of Marine Debris” at the GEO Symposium 2021. This session will took place on June 23, 2021 at 17:00-18:00 CEST. Visit the Symposium Web Page or watch the recording on YouTube.

Session at All-Atlantic Conference

The GEO Blue Planet Initiative organized a special event on “Challenges and Opportunities in monitoring the sources and pathways of Marine Debris in the Atlantic Ocean” at the All-Atlantic 2021 Conference. For details, see here.


This Initiative is sponsored by: