SIRENS

Athena hackathon April 13-14th @ Queen Mary University

@author Sharleen Braham Athena - Readme.md

Contributors|

• Sophie Ashcroft
• Ariadne Thompson
• Ruth Maycock
• Bernice Thorpe
• Sharleen Braham

Introduction|

SIRENS is an environmentally friendly Company

Plastic waste in the ocean affects wildlife and enters into the food chain. Plastic waste in the ocean has increased since 1950's from 8.3 billion tonnes to 12.7 million tonnes per year in 2017. ALDFG (Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear) can be transported by currents and high winds. A survey by Ocean Cleanup identified that 46% of the plastic waste is due to fishing nets. Efforts to reduce the levels of plastic waste, have included a focus on consumers (supermarkets charging customers for plastic bags since the 5th October 2015 and reducing access of plastic straws (2018)). The single-use of carrier bags in 2014 was 7.6 billion bags, which was reduced to 1.75 billion bags in 2017-18. The success of this approach has led Sirens to champion the retrieval of ALDFG, with the aim of achieving a similar 75% reduction in the impact abandoned fishing nets have on wild life. Sirens will partner with Remora, a company that produces radio-frequency identifer tags (RFID) to track fishing nets, using design thinking principles. The RFID tagged fishing nets, coupled together with weather forecast data, will be used to create a predictive model for precisely identifying the pathway of fishing nets for efficient collection of those that become abandoned. The application programming interface (API) data for weather forecasting based on latitude, longitude and time will be collected for analysis and interpreted to produce a predictive model for tracking abandoned fishing nets. Thus, Sirens will inspire standardisation of a rapid and efficient response to ALDFG.

|Technology |Version/Docs|

Python v3.7.0 Java - Android Studio Agile methodology Testing

|Tutorials|

|Tests|

|GitHub codebase|

https://github.com/bernana777/sirens-athenahack

|Useful Information|

• Stormglass weather forecast
• Ocean Cleanup Survey
• Remora
• Richardson, K et al Oct 2018. Marine Policy Understanding causes of gear loss provides a sound basis for fisheries management