Slicks and oil spills monitoring in Black sea using spaceborne SAR and aerial photography

Konstantin Litovchenko
Russian Institute of Space Device Engineering, Moscow, Russia
Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
litov@rniikp.ru

Olga Lavrova
Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
olavrova@mx.iki.rssi.ru

ABSTRACT

The coastal zone of the Russian sector of the Black sea has been monitored during the summer of 2004 on a regular basis with helicopter-borne aerial photography for oil pollution surveillance. A number of oil spills have been detected and analyzed. Pollution coefficients are calculated from the estimated sizes and thicknesses of the visually observed oil spills. On the other side, a series of ERS-2 SAR and ENVISAT ASAR images were collected during the same period. In some cases an obvious correlation between SAR signatures and aerial photographs is observed. However, the slicks on the sea surface visible on SAR imagery should often be identified as low wind areas. The wind data for the SAR image acquisitions were thoroughly analyzed and compared with really observed oil spills from helicopter. It is shown that in some cases oil spills may certainly be detected from SAR imagery provided that wind speed and direction as well as the coastal relief are taken into account. In the future, the helicopter survey should be better coordinated with SAR passes in order to improve the interpretation of slicks on SAR images.

Last Update: 2005-03-16