Enhancing marine litter management – SEAWatcher App

Enhancing marine litter management – SEAWatcher App   

In the framework of the bilateral agreement INFO/RAC has developed a web and mobile application for the collection of geographic data on marine litter called SEAWatcher.

The App aims at enhancing marine litter management providing a tool that is easy and readily available for the reporting of beach, floating or seafloor litter and it is based on the main principles of participatory science (citizen science), including the aspect of usage awareness which has been fully taken into account in the design and practical implementation of the App in order to make the use of the tool as user friendly as possible. SEAWatcher has a simple and intuitive interface, which makes the reporting as easy and fast as possible.

A basic reporting level requires only the coordinates of a georeferenced point (generated by GPS of the device), image of the object and a possible user note. This basic report layer includes a form that can be displayed on a single screen on any smartphone, avoiding the need to scroll the APP page looking for additional fields.

The implementation of the bilateral agreement has made it possible to create a flexible and open-source instrument that will allow to incorporate in the future additional topics of interest to the Barcelona Convention, in particular for species monitoring as plants and big animals.. Multiples benefits will be reached by the usage of SEAWatcher such as to enforce the visibility of UNEP/MAP and the message of “Communication as One” and to even more interlink the activities in the Barcelona Convention framework through the involvement and participation of citizens and stakeholders.

SEAWatcher is available both for IOS and Android operating systems.