EcoExposure™ for Scalable Geospatial Monitoring of Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Marine Ecosystems: Enabling Frequent Monitoring, Hotspot Identification, and Intervention Evaluation
Abstract
Microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) are increasingly recognized as widespread contaminants of marine ecosystems, with potential impacts on biodiversity, fisheries, aquaculture, and food security. Although laboratory-based analytical techniques remain essential for polymer identification and characterization, their cost and infrastructure requirements often limit monitoring frequency and spatial coverage. There is an increasing need for complementary field-deployable approaches capable of supporting frequent, standardized, and geospatially distributed environmental monitoring.
The EcoExposure™ platform is a smartphone-enabled environmental monitoring system that integrates natural reagent chemistry, optical sensing, computer vision, artificial intelligence, and standardized geospatial metadata collection to provide rapid field screening of total microplastic and nanoplastic burden. Designed to complement existing laboratory workflows, the platform enables repeat monitoring, hotspot identification, longitudinal assessment, and evaluation of environmental interventions across marine, coastal, estuarine, and aquaculture environments.
This paper reviews the need for scalable monitoring throughout the Asia-Pacific region and discusses how AI-enabled field screening may complement centralized laboratory methods by increasing the spatial and temporal resolution of environmental datasets. Figures 1 and 2 provide an overview of regional contamination patterns and illustrate the ecological pathways and monitoring framework supporting distributed marine environmental intelligence.
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Figure 1. Global overview of reported MP and NP concentrations across major world regions. Representative literature-derived observations (2022–2025) illustrate reported concentrations in water, sediments, and dietary exposure pathways, highlighting regional variability and elevated burdens reported throughout parts of Asia. Data are summarized from published literature for illustrative comparison and are intended to provide global context for scalable environmental monitoring.
IntroductionSystematic reviews across Southeast Asia have reported microplastic concentrations reaching up to 238,000 particles L⁻¹ in surface waters and exceeding 200,000 particles kg⁻¹ in marine sediments. Key regional waterways, including the Johor and Singapore Straits, have documented high concentrations with seasonal increases during monsoon periods. Studies from the South China Sea, Beibu Gulf, Singapore, Malaysia, and neighboring regions demonstrate widespread contamination of commercially important fish, shellfish, crustaceans, and aquaculture products. Fish occurrence rates approaching 93.7% have been reported in some marine systems, while farmed aquaculture species frequently exhibit higher particle burdens than wild-caught organisms due to contaminated pond water, feeds, and plastic infrastructure. Although nanoplastics remain more difficult to quantify using conventional laboratory techniques, they are increasingly recognized as a potentially greater environmental concern because of their enhanced cellular uptake, tissue translocation, and interactions with biological systems.
Australia represents one of the best-characterized marine monitoring systems within the Asia-Pacific region. Multiple studies have documented widespread microplastic ingestion in marine fish, contamination throughout southern Australian marine food webs, and elevated occurrence within Great Barrier Reef ecosystems. Together, these studies highlight both the scale of regional contamination and the importance of practical monitoring approaches capable of generating higher-resolution spatial and temporal datasets.
Figure 2. Microplastics and nanoplastics in marine ecosystems: pathways, trophic transfer, ecological impacts, and opportunities for scalable monitoring. Plastic debris enters marine environments through multiple pathways and undergoes fragmentation into MPs and NPs. These particles are transported throughout aquatic food webs, where they may accumulate in plankton, invertebrates, fish, marine mammals, and seafood consumed by humans. NPs may present additional concerns because of their smaller size, higher surface-area-to-volume ratio, and greater potential for cellular uptake and tissue translocation. The lower panel illustrates the EcoExposure™ workflow for field-deployable AI-assisted environmental monitoring using standardized smartphone imaging, geospatial metadata collection, hotspot identification, and longitudinal monitoring.
Despite increasing awareness, effective environmental management remains constrained by monitoring limitations. Most analytical methods rely on centralized laboratory techniques including Raman spectroscopy, FTIR microscopy, and pyrolysis-GC/MS. While these techniques remain indispensable for polymer identification and confirmatory analysis, they are resource-intensive and generally produce relatively sparse spatial and temporal datasets. Monitoring programs therefore often rely on isolated "snapshot" surveys that may not adequately identify localized pollution hotspots, characterize seasonal variation, or evaluate intervention effectiveness.
The EcoExposure™ platform is designed to complement laboratory workflows through a gentle intact-liquid optical screening approach that enables rapid, field-deployable assessment of total microplastic and nanoplastic burden. By integrating natural reagent chemistry, standardized smartphone imaging, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and geospatial metadata collection, the platform supports frequent monitoring, longitudinal sampling, hotspot identification, and scalable environmental intelligence across marine, coastal, estuarine, and aquaculture environments.
Table 1. EcoExposure™ Platform Capabilities for Marine Ecosystem Monitoring
Marine Monitoring Challenge | EcoExposure™ Capability |
One-time snapshot monitoring | Frequent repeat monitoring and longitudinal sampling |
Limited spatial coverage | High-density geospatial sampling and hotspot identification |
Difficulty evaluating interventions | Standardized pre- and post-intervention monitoring |
High laboratory cost and infrastructure requirements | Portable smartphone-enabled field deployment |
Sample alteration during processing | Gentle intact-liquid workflow preserving particle integrity |
Limited field assessment of nanoplastics | Simultaneous screening of total microplastic and nanoplastic burden |
Fragmented environmental datasets | AI-ready standardized geospatial metadata collection |
EcoExposure™ Workflow for Marine Environments
The EcoExposure™ workflow is designed for practical deployment across diverse marine environments while minimizing sample manipulation.
Collection of an intact liquid sample from marine, coastal, estuarine, aquaculture, or shoreline environments using a standardized transparent vessel.
Addition of a proprietary optical interaction reagent system with minimal sample handling.
Standardized smartphone image acquisition followed by AI-assisted computer vision analysis after a short incubation period.
The workflow operates without elevated temperatures, harsh digestion chemistries, or extensive laboratory processing, helping preserve particle integrity while reducing contamination risk during field deployment.
Figure 3. Example of field deployment of the EcoExposure™ platform during marine environmental sampling. Smartphone-based image acquisition and standardized field workflows support scalable monitoring of microplastics and nanoplastics in coastal and marine environments.
Addressing Key Challenges in Marine Ecosystem Monitoring
Traditional marine monitoring programs frequently provide isolated measurements that may not adequately characterize dynamic environmental conditions. EcoExposure™ is intended to complement laboratory methods by enabling scalable environmental screening.
Frequent Monitoring
Portable field deployment supports routine repeat sampling at the same locations, allowing seasonal trends, storm events, runoff impacts, and long-term environmental changes to be evaluated.
Hotspot Identification
Standardized GPS coordinates, timestamps, and AI-generated image analysis enable generation of high-density spatial datasets that identify areas with elevated microplastic and nanoplastic burden.
Intervention Evaluation
The same standardized workflow can be applied before and after shoreline cleanup activities, restoration projects, engineering interventions, pollution reduction programs, or policy implementation to evaluate changes in total plastic burden.
Distributed Environmental Intelligence
Standardized metadata—including geospatial coordinates, environmental conditions, sample type, collection time, and AI-derived measurements—supports AI-ready environmental datasets for regional monitoring programs and long-term environmental intelligence.
As illustrated in Figure 2, plastic debris fragments into microplastics and nanoplastics that move through multiple environmental compartments and trophic levels, ultimately affecting commercially important seafood species, marine biodiversity, and ecosystem function.
Traditional marine monitoring programs frequently provide isolated measurements that may not adequately characterize these dynamic environmental processes. EcoExposure™ is intended to complement laboratory methods by enabling scalable environmental screening.
Potential Applications
The EcoExposure™ platform may support scalable monitoring across a wide range of marine environments, including:
Coastal and marine protected areas
Coral reef monitoring programs
Mangrove ecosystems
Estuarine and brackish-water systems
Aquaculture operations
Commercial fisheries
Seafood supply chains
Ports and shipping corridors
Coastal restoration projects
Marine litter cleanup assessment
Citizen science initiatives
Blue economy monitoring programs
Field Validation
EcoExposure™ has been evaluated across diverse environmental matrices relevant to marine ecosystem monitoring, including:
Municipal drinking water
Freshwater systems
Coastal marine waters
High-salinity seawater
Brackish and estuarine waters
Dissolved organic matter (DOM)-rich waters
Hard and mineralized waters
Field evaluations have demonstrated practical smartphone image acquisition, AI-assisted analysis, standardized metadata collection, and scalable deployment under real-world environmental conditions representative of shoreline, vessel-based, and remote monitoring applications.
Position Within the Environmental Monitoring Ecosystem
EcoExposure™ is designed to complement—not replace—centralized laboratory methods.
Rapid field screening can substantially increase spatial and temporal sampling density while identifying locations that may benefit from subsequent confirmatory polymer-specific laboratory analysis. This tiered monitoring strategy has the potential to improve monitoring efficiency while expanding environmental coverage throughout marine ecosystems.
Advantages of the EcoExposure™ Platform
Simultaneous screening of total microplastic and nanoplastic burden.
AI-assisted smartphone image analysis.
Computer vision-enabled optical assessment.
Gentle intact-liquid workflow preserving particle integrity.
Standardized geospatial metadata collection.
Portable deployment requiring minimal infrastructure.
Suitable for coastal, marine, estuarine, and aquaculture environments.
Supports frequent monitoring and longitudinal datasets.
Facilitates hotspot identification and intervention evaluation.
Complements ISO 24187 laboratory workflows through scalable field screening.
Conclusion
Marine ecosystems require monitoring approaches capable of moving beyond isolated snapshot surveys toward scalable, repeatable environmental surveillance. EcoExposure™ provides a complementary field-deployable platform integrating natural reagent chemistry, smartphone imaging, computer vision, artificial intelligence, and standardized geospatial metadata collection to enable rapid screening of total microplastic and nanoplastic burden.
By supporting frequent monitoring, hotspot identification, longitudinal assessment, and intervention evaluation across marine, coastal, estuarine, and aquaculture environments, the EcoExposure™ platform has the potential to strengthen distributed environmental monitoring throughout the Asia-Pacific region while complementing existing laboratory-based analytical methods.
Representative References
Arina N, et al. (2025). Microplastics Contamination in Coastal Environments of Southeast Asia: A Systematic Review. Science of the Total Environment.
Curren E, et al. (2023). Spatiotemporal Characterisation of Microplastics in the Johor and Singapore Straits. Heliyon, 9, e12815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e12815
Ibrahim AN, et al. (2025). Microplastic Prevalence in Marine Fish from the South China Sea. Frontiers in Marine Science.
Koongolla JB, et al. (2022). Microplastic Prevalence in Marine Fish from Onshore Beibu Gulf, South China Sea. Frontiers in Marine Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.964461
Wootton N, Ferreira M, Reis-Santos P, Gillanders BM. (2021). A Comparison of Microplastic in Fish from Australia and Fiji. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, 690991.
Wootton N, et al. (2023). Investigating Microplastic Contamination and Biomagnification in a Remote Area of South Australia. Marine and Freshwater Research, 74(11), 917–927.
Wootton N, Silva V, Giuretis D, et al. (2025). Microplastic Presence in Dried and Fresh Fish from Seafood Markets in Sri Lanka. Marine and Freshwater Research.
ISO 24187:2023. Water Quality — Guidance on the Analysis of Microplastics in the Environment.
Jambeck JR, et al. (2015). Plastic Waste Inputs from Land into the Ocean. Science, 347(6223), 768–771.
Selected literature describing microplastic and nanoplastic occurrence, trophic transfer, contaminant transport, seafood exposure, and ecological impacts in marine ecosystems.
National and international marine litter and microplastic monitoring frameworks.
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