Oil Spill Detection Using Otical Sensors: A Multi-Temporal Approach

Abstract

Oil pollution is one of the most destructive consequences due to human activities in the marine environment. Oil wastes come from many sources and take decades to be disposed of. Satellite based remote sensing systems can be implemented into a surveillance and monitoring network. In this study, a multi-temporal approach to the oil spill detection problem is investigated. Change Detection (CD) analysis was applied to MODIS/Terra and Aqua and OLI/Landsat 8 images of several reported oil spill events, characterized by different geographic location, sea conditions, source and extension of the spill. Toward the development of an automatic detection algorithm, a Change Vector Analysis (CVA) technique was implemented to carry out the comparison between the current image of the area of interest and a dataset of reference image, statistically analyzed to reduce the sea spectral variability between different dates. The proposed approach highlights the optical sensors’ capabilities in detecting oil spills at sea. The effectiveness of different sensors’ resolution towards the detection of spills of different size, and the relevance of the sensors’ revisiting time to track and monitor the evolution of the event is also investigated.

Eutrophication and HAB Occurrence Control in Lakes of Different Origins: A Multi-Source Remote Sensing Detection Strategy

“…Remote Sens. 2024, 16, 1792 2 of 15 Moreover, Sentinel-2 has been utilized for identifying oil spills in both marine and freshwater settings [10,11], and several similar studies with other optical sensors are available, too [12][13][14].…”

Remote Sensing Detection of Algal Blooms in a Lake Impacted by Petroleum Hydrocarbons

“…Several investigators have already demonstrated their capabilities for water quality monitoring [28][29][30][31][32][33], particularly in using band 5 at 705 nm, which resolves the secondary reflectance peak related to pigment concentrations [34]. Sentinel-2 was also used to identify oil spills in the sea [35], and several comparable studies are available for other optical sensors [36][37][38]. The visible and infrared reflectance shape features of pure water and oil are relatively similar, and, often, magnitude differences depend heavily on illumination conditions.…”