Plastic transport from land to the oceans
This research aims to clarify plastic transport from land to the oceans by in-site survey and/or developing a technique for quantifying plastics on river and marine environment.
Greeting
Welcome to Kataoka Laboratory, Ehime University
The laboratory has opened in the depertment of civil and environmental engineering, Ehime University since 2021. To propose an application and countermeasure to global environmental problem (plastic pollution and climate change), we are progressing the researches to investigate environmental contamination (e.g., microplastics, macroplastics) through in-site survey and to develop a technique for quantifying it. Furthermore, we are interested in remote sensing for coastal oceanography (e.g., high-frequency radar, satelite). In this website, we introduce a part of our reseraches.
What's new
- 2025/08/06
- Shimadzu Co. Ltd. have lanched a new software for analyzing microplastic particles in which our model for estimating particulate mass of microplastics has been implemented. Please see the websites of our university and Shimadzu (both websites in Japanese).NEW
- 2025/08/04
- Our new project, entitled 'Research on the Social Implementation of Ocean Wave and Sea Wind Monitoring Using a High-Frequency Oceanographic Radar System (HFRS)' has been accepted for funding by the Ministry of Land, Infractructure, Transport and tourism (MLIT). We will develop a service to provide oceanographic data observed by the HFRS. Please visit the website of MLIT in Japanese for more information.NEW
- 2025/04/14
- We have lanched a software for monitoring floating macro-plasitic litter (Plastic Runoff Identification, Monitoring & Observation System: PRIMOS) via AI with Yachiyo Engineering Co. Ltd. Please see the websites of our university or Yachiyo Engineering in Japanese. And the information of PRIMOS is available here.
- 2025/04/01
- The laboratory members have been updated.
- 2024/11/20
- Mr. Iga, a master's course student, received the Outstanding Presentation Award at the 2024 JSCE Annual Conference. Congratulations! You can find more details on the faculty website here.
- 2024/10/24
- We published a new paper entitled 'Instance segmentation models for detecting floating macroplastic debris from river surface images' in Frontiers in Environmental Science. This paper is available from here
- 2024/07/19
- We launched a press release regarding the paper publiscation in Water Research cooperating with Tokyo University of Science (TUS). Please see the websites of our university or TUS
- 2024/07/08
- We published a new paper entitled 'Geometric relationship between the projected surface area and mass of a plastic particle' in Water Research. This paper is available from here
- 2024/04/01
- The laboratory members have been updated.
- 2023/11/15
- An exchange student joined our laboratory in one month. Please see hereNEW
- 2023/11/01
- We published a new paper entitled 'Applicability of ocean wave measurements based on high-frequency radar systems in an estuary region' in Coastal Engineering Journal. This paper is available from here
- 2023/10/15
- We published a new paper entitled 'An analytical approach to confidence interval estimation of river microplastic sampling' in Environmental Pollution. This paper is available from here
- 2023/10/01
- We published a new paper entitled 'Drones for litter monitoring on coasts and rivers: suitable flight altitude and image resolution' in Marine Pollution Bulletin. This paper is available from here
- 2023/06/01
- We have started Twitter! Please follow our tweets here.
- 2023/05/01
- We started Instagram! We will post research activities. Please follow me here if you interested in our research activity.
- 2023/04/07
- The laboratory members have been updated.
- 2023/02/01
- We published a new paper entitled 'Experimental uncertainty assessment of meso- and microplastic concentrations in rivers based on net sampling' in Science of the Total Environment. This paper is available from here
- 2022/08/23
- We published a new paper entitled 'Variance and precision of microplastic sampling in urban rivers' in Environmental Pollution. This paper is available from here
- 2022/04/11
- The laboratory members have been updated.
- 2022/03/23
- Prof. Kataoka participate the international workshop entitled "The future of ocean plastics workshop" as a panelist. If you were interested in this workshop, please see here. You can also register this workshop for free.
- 2021/07/01
- The laboratory members have been updated.
- 2021/02/08
- This web site has been opened.
Research Topics
Remote sensing of ocean wave in coastal region
This research aims to develop a technique for measuring ocean waves with high spatiotemporal resolution using high-frequency radars and to clarify a spatiotemporal flucutuation of ocean waves in coastal region.