Offshore platform sourced pollution monitoring using space-borne fully polarimetric C and X band synthetic aperture radar.

Use of polarimetric SAR data for offshore pollution monitoring is relatively new and shows great potential for operational offshore platform monitoring. This paper describes the development of an automated oil spill detection chain for operational purposes based on C-band (RADARSAT-2) and X-band (TerraSAR-X) fully polarimetric images, wherein we use polarimetric features to characterize oil spills and look-alikes. Numbers of near coincident TerraSAR-X and RADARSAT-2 images have been acquired over offshore platforms.

Near real time monitoring of platform sourced pollution using TerraSAR-X over the North Sea.

Continuous operational monitoring by means of remote sensing contributes significantly towards less occurrence of oil spills over European waters however, operational activities show regular occurrence of accidental and deliberate oil spills over the North Sea, particularly from offshore platform installations. Since the areas covered by oil spills are usually large and scattered over the North Sea, satellite remote sensing particularly Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) represents an effective tool for operational oil spill detection. This paper describes the development of a semi-automated approach for oil spill detection, optimized for near real time offshore platform sourced pollution monitoring context.

Automatic Synthetic Aperture Radar based oil spill detection and performance estimation via a semi-automatic operational service benchmark.

Today the health of ocean is in danger as it was never before mainly due to man-made pollutions. Operational activities show regular occurrence of accidental and deliberate oil spill in European waters. Since the areas covered by oil spills are usually large, satellite remote sensing particularly Synthetic Aperture Radar represents an effective option for operational oil spill detection.