Plastic Leakage Ground Survey Completed using Mobile App

Overview 

The Geoinformatics Center (GIC) has successfully completed ground surveys using the Survey123 mobile application across four target locations in Bangkok (Thailand), Can Tho (Vietnam), Vientiane (Laos), and Battambang (Cambodia). The purpose of this survey was to identify plastic leakage hotspots, illegal dumping sites, littering spots and artificial barriers near rivers through citizen science approach. This was achieved by recording key information such as surveyor data; date and time; type of data collection location; details of plastic waste and photos of the survey locations.  

This milestone is a part of the PlasticFlow Mekong project funded by the Mekong ROK Cooperation Fund. This achievement was made possible with valuable support from our project partners- National University of Laos (NUOL), COMPOSTED, Royal University of Phnom Penh(RUPP) and CLEARRIVERS. The data collected from these surveys will help identify plastic hotspots within the study area, plastic leakage pathways, providing scientific evidence to assist policymakers in improving plastic waste management.  

As a result of the ground survey, a total of 1,143 data points were collected using a mobile application, providing a diverse plastic leakage database across study locations in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. These data points were used to generate point maps and will serve as the basis for creating detailed plastic leakage maps for each of the four countries.