The Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences

2027 Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences

January 12-15, 2027

HIGH-FREQUENCY VISUAL MONITORING OF MARINE FLOATING DEBRIS USING SHORE-BASED VIDEO SURVEILLANCE
ID:1259 Poster Presentation

2027-01-15 18:00 (China Standard Time)

Session:Session 57 - AI and Digital Twin-Driven Coastal Zone Monitoring, Prediction, and Governance

Abstract
Marine floating debris is a persistent issue in coastal waters, harming ecosystems, navigation, and shorelines. Effective monitoring is essential for rapid response and environmental management. However, debris in ports and bays appears intermittently and changes quickly due to tides, winds, and human activities. Traditional methods like ships, drones, or satellites often miss this short-term variability. Shore-based video cameras offer stable, frequent observations, making them a practical source for local monitoring. Yet automatic recognition from such images is difficult due to sun glint, waves, rain, wakes, and varied backgrounds. Moreover, debris types differ visually: plastic items are usually distinct with clear edges, while plant-derived debris forms irregular, diffuse patches. Using a single detection method for both limits performance.This study proposes a category-aware recognition framework using shore-based video images from Xiamen Bay, China. The dataset includes images under sunny, cloudy, rainy, and glint conditions, with both debris-positive and clean-background samples. The framework assigns different debris types to specialized visual branches. For plastic debris, an improved YOLOv8-based detector adds a P2 layer to capture fine details and uses an attention module to highlight relevant features. For plant-derived debris, a YOLO11-seg segmentation branch better represents irregular shapes that bounding boxes cannot handle well. The two branches are combined at the decision level using confidence scores, category-specific merging, and non-maximum suppression.Model evaluation included monthly tests, ablation studies, comparisons with other YOLO models, and false-alarm analysis on clean backgrounds. The framework achieved 88.85% average precision and 89.9% recall. Ablation results confirmed that the P2 layer and attention module improved plastic detection, while the segmentation branch gave more complete outlines for plant debris. Error analysis showed that sun glint caused most false alarms, while rain, low light, and complex wave patterns led to missed detections.These findings indicate that morphology-based task allocation effectively recognizes heterogeneous floating debris from shore-based video. The proposed system can provide candidate targets for manual review and routine inspections, supporting faster and more targeted coastal debris management. Future work will focus on temporal tracking and adaptive preprocessing to transition from single-frame detection to continuous event monitoring and operational regulation.
Speaker
Wencai Zou Xiamen University;College of Ocean and Earth Sciences

Author
Wencai Zou Xiamen University;College of Ocean and Earth Sciences

    Important Dates

    • Jan 30

      2026

      Session / Event proposals open

    • Mar 31

      2026

      Session / Event proposals close
      (Extended to April 7)

    • Apr 30

      2026

      Session acceptance notifications

    • Apr 30

      2026

      Abstract submissions & registration open

    • Jun 30

      2026

      Abstract submissions close
      (Extended to July 21)

    • Aug 31

      2026

      Abstract acceptance notifications

    • Sep 15

      2026

      Scientific program released

    • Oct 15

      2026

      Early bird registration closes

    • Jan 12–15

      2027

      XMAS 2027