Spatial water quality and plastic buoy of seaweed culture in coastal area, Indonesia

Remote sensing has provided some water quality data that can be used to assess the suitability of water quality for cultivation. It is the main approach used to map seaweed farming. The aims of this study were to map the seaweed farming potential of the study area and calculate the amount of plastic waste likely to be produced from the use of plastic buoys in seaweed aquaculture. SPOT 6 and Sentinel 2 provide high and moderate resolution satellite imagery that can be used as primary data to map seaweed farming at fine and broad scales. ArcMap application was applied to analyse the vector data of water quality. Weighting and scoring were carried out to give value to the parameters for culture suitability. The plastic waste used as a buoy during cultivation is calculated based on primary data from field surveys. The results suggest that the simple analysis of high and moderate spatial resolution imagery with digitation on screen method can delineate seaweed farming areas efficiently. Furthermore, this method could be applied in the future to monitor the extent of seaweed farms and to predict the amount of plastic waste produced by seaweed farming activities. © 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.