PhD in Computer Science

This project responds to a three-year marine litter monitoring campaign on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK. It builds on Loughborough University’s 50 Years of Litter on Skye and associated research projects. Integrating environmental, engineering, and social science methods, the interdisciplinary team of researchers that this PhD will augment have identified, evaluated, and are evolving marine litter monitoring methods with community partners across Scotland’s west coast. The potential for drone and mobile phone imagery to enhance this work has been discussed with community groups, informing this project proposal. This PhD will evaluate the efficacy and suitability of digital image collection and analysis for beach litter characterisation on heavily-littered coastlines, in partnership with community groups across Scotland’s west coast. It will evaluate the practicality of different image capture techniques and the potential of different sensor types (e.g., RGB, multispectral) to generate beach litter images. Analysis of images will investigate the efficacy of manual digital approaches (e.g., Dot Dot Goose) and the development of a marine litter characterisation and quantification algorithm for automated analysis (computer vision technologies). The interdisciplinary nature of this PhD will require the integration of environmental science, engineering, and community science methodologies.