The aim of a study conducted by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the Institute for Marine Sciences of the National Research Council (CNR-ISMAR) and Sapienza University of Rome was to identify accumulations of plastic in the sea from space. The study was carried out as part of the Space It Up! programme, funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR) under contract no. 2024-5-E.0 – CUP I53D24000060005.

Thanks to two experiments conducted in Lake Massaciuccoli in Tuscany and in the Gulf of La Spezia, the researchers demonstrated that satellite data acquired by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors can be used to identify floating accumulations of plastic, providing one of the first experimental demonstrations of the potential of this technology in marine environments. The results have been published in the scientific journal Remote Sensing of Environment.

To carry out the experiments, the researchers created a small plastic island designed to replicate as realistically as possible the shape and dimensions typically associated with accumulations of plastic waste found in marine and ocean environments. SAR sensors aboard COSMO-SkyMed satellites, a programme of the Italian Space Agency and the Ministry of Defence, and ICEYE satellites captured images of the island using different configurations in terms of spatial resolution, observation geometry and polarisation. Analysis of the images showed that the plastic accumulations could be clearly distinguished from the surrounding water surface. The published study highlights that the presence of plastic alters the surface roughness of the water, resulting in an increase in the intensity of the signal measured by the sensor.

This finding opens up new possibilities for monitoring plastic waste at sea using satellite radar data. To date, most studies on the subject have focused on optical sensors operating in the visible and thermal infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, while the use of SAR sensors remains relatively unexplored. This technology offers an important advantage: it can acquire images both day and night, even in the presence of cloud cover, potentially enabling more continuous monitoring of plastic waste in aquatic environments in the future.

References: Anconitano G, Bignami C, Locritani M, Merlino S, Muccini F, Nunziata F, Polcari M, Towards plastic litter identification in aquatic environments using high-resolution SAR data. Remote Sensing of Environment (2026)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2026.115493

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Credits video:

Video 1: @Christian Bignami, Marina Locritani

Video 2: @Marco Polcari, Marina Locritani, Ambienti Magri