scholarly journals The Potentiality of Operational Mapping of Oil Pollution in the Mediterranean Sea near the Entrance of the Suez Canal Using Sentinel-1 SAR Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Islam Abou El-Magd ◽  
Mohamed Zakzouk ◽  
Abdulaziz M. Abdulaziz ◽  
Elham M. Ali
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Volume Estimation ◽  
Dark Spot ◽  
Potential Hazard ◽  
Ship Traffic ◽  
Port Said

The Suez Canal, being a main international maritime shipping route, experiences heavy ship traffic with probable illegal oil discharges. Oil pollution is harming the marine ecosystem and creates pressure on the coastal socio-economic activities particularly at Port Said city (the area of study). It is anticipated that the damage of oil spills is not only during the event but it extends for a long time and normally requires more effort to remediate and recover the environment. Hence, early detection and volume estimation of these spills is the first and most important step for a successful clean-up operation. This study is the first to use Sentinel-1 space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for oil spill detection and mapping over the north entrance of the Suez Canal aiming to enable operational monitoring. SAR sensors are able to capture images day and night and are not affected by weather conditions. In addition, they have a wide swath that covers large geographical areas for possible oil spills. The present study examines a large amount of data (800 scenes of sentinel 1) for the study area over a period of five years from 2014 till 2019 which resulted in the detection of more than 20 events of oil pollution. The detection model is based on the quantitative analysis of the dark spot of the radar backscatter of oil spills. The largest case covered nearly 26 km2 of seawater. The spill drift direction in the area of spills indicated potential hazard on fishing activities, Port Said beaches and ports. This study can be the base for continuously monitoring and alarming pollution cases in the Canal area which is important for environmental agencies, decision-makers, and beneficiaries for coastal and marine socio-economic sustainability.

scholarly journals Dark spot detection for characterization of marine surface slicks using UAVSAR quad-pol data

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaishali Chaudhary ◽  
Shashi Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spills ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Dark Spot ◽  
Accurate Estimation ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Potential Hazard ◽  
Significant Drop ◽  
Oil Slick ◽  
Spot Detection ◽  
Marine Surface

AbstractOil spills are a potential hazard, causing the deaths of millions of aquatic animals and this leaves a calamitous effect on the marine ecosystem. This research focuses on evaluating the potential of polarimetric parameters in discriminating the oil slick from water and also possible thicker/thinner zones within the slick. For this purpose, L-band UAVSAR quad-pol data of the Gulf of Mexico region is exploited. A total number of 19 polarimetric parameters are examined to study their behavior and ability in distinguishing oil slick from water and its own less or more oil accumulated zones. The simulation of compact-pol data from UAVSAR quad-pol data is carried out which has shown good performance in detection and discrimination of oil slick from water. To know the extent of separation between oil and water classes, a statistical separability analysis is carried out. The outcomes of each polarimetric parameter from separability analysis are then quantified with the radial basis function (RBF) supervised Support Vector Machine classifier followed with an accurate estimation of the results. Moreover, a comparison of the achieved and estimated accuracy has shown a significant drop in accuracy values. It has been observed that the highest accuracy is given by LHV compact-pol decomposition and coherency matrix with a classification accuracy of ~ 94.09% and ~ 94.60%, respectively. The proposed methodology has performed well in discriminating the oil slick by utilizing UAVSAR dataset for both quad-pol and compact-pol simulation.

scholarly journals An Open Source Approach for Near-Real Time Mapping of Oil Spills along the Mediterranean Coast of Egypt

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 2733
Author(s):  
Islam Abou El-Magd ◽  
Mohamed Zakzouk ◽  
Elham M. Ali ◽  
Abdulaziz M. Abdulaziz
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
City Council ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Sar Data ◽  
Port Said ◽  
The City

Oil pollution is one of the major critical risks to the Egypt’s marine environment due to the heavy traffic caused by shipping in the Suez Canal and the exploration and production of crude oil. Indeed, such frequent oil pollution cases harm to the marine ecosystem and creates pressure on the socio-economic activities within the coastal economic zone of Egypt. Limited data availability creates obstacles to the precise monitoring of oil pollution and the ability to alert the environment agency to take any necessary actions. This research explored the potentiality of developing an open-source model with the use of open-access Sentinel 1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the European Space Agency to operationally monitor oil pollution at near-real time. As such, early detection and quantification of the volume of pollution creates an early warning system that supports decision makers in clean-up operations and the prosecution of the polluter. The developed model uses an open-source GIS system and Sentinel-1 SAR data to robustly detect and map oil spills and create an a report to alert the appropriate agency of the spill. The model examined a large amount of data, nearly 2000 scenes from the Sentinel 1 SAR sensor, that cover the area of study from 2014 to 2020. The model detected approximately 218 oil pollution cases within this time frame, with about 35% occurring in 2017 alone. The statistical analysis and frequency of oil pollution is mapped near the entrance of Suez Canal and the city of Port Said. This area is known as the anchoring area for the maritime ships that travel via the Suez Canal, and there are also oil and gas production nearby. It was found that the drift direction of the oil spills near Port Said move southwards, which creates a hazard for local fishing activities, Port Said touristic beaches, and marine ports. This model is the scientific and practical solution for the city council and the environmental agency to continuously monitor and receive alerts regarding any oil pollution cases in order to protect the coastal and marine socio-economic ecosystem and maintain sustainability.

scholarly journals OILSPILL AND LOOK-ALIKE SPOTS FROM SAR IMAGERY USING OTSU METHOD AND ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
M. Sornam
Keyword(s):  
Image Segmentation ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Dark Spot ◽  
Oil Spill Detection ◽  
Otsu Method ◽  
Artificial Neural ◽  
Propagation Network

Oil spill pollution plays a significant role in damaging marine ecosystem. Discharge of oil due to tanker accidents has the most dangerous effects on marine environment. The main waste source is the ship based operational discharges. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can be effectively used for the detection and classification of oil spills. Oil spills appear as dark spots in SAR images. One major advantage of SAR is that it can generate imagery under all weather conditions. However, similar dark spots may arise from a range of unrelated meteorological and oceanographic phenomena, resulting in misidentification. A major focus of research in this area is the development of algorithms to distinguish ‘oil spills’ from ‘look-alikes’. The features of detected dark spot are then extracted and classified to discriminate oil spills from look-alikes. This paper describes the development of a new approach to SAR oil spill detection using Segmentation method and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). A SAR-based oil-spill detection process consists of three stages: image segmentation, feature extraction and object recognition (classification) of the segmented objects as oil spills or look-alikes. The image segmentation was performed with Otsu method. Classification has been done using Back Propagation Network and this network classifies objects into oil spills or look-alikes according to their feature parameters. Improved results have been achieved for the discrimination of oil spills and look-alikes.

Study on Purification of Oil-Polluted Sea Water by Rice Hull Adsorbent

2013 ◽  
Vol 295-298 ◽  
pp. 1245-1248
Author(s):  
Mei Yu Zhao ◽  
Yu Bo Cui ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Ying Hui Liu ◽  
Hong Xin Li
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spills ◽  
Sea Water ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Marine Ecosystem ◽  
Rice Hull ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Marine Oil ◽  
Urgent Task ◽  
Treatment Measures ◽  
Ocean Ecosystem

Oil spills and leakage accidents caused by oil exploitation, processing, transportation and use continue to pose environmental threat to global marine ecosystem. It has become an urgent task to prevent the ocean ecosystem from oil pollution and protect the marine resources. This paper introduces the negative effects of marine oil pollution and conventional treatment measures, briefly analyzes the great potential of rice hull adsorbent for purification of oil-polluted sea water and initially explored the adsorption effects of rice hull adsorbent. The experimental results indicated that after static adsorption at different dosage of rice hull adsorbent (0g, 4g, 8g, 12g, 16g, 20g), the oil removal efficiency got 65.3% when treated by rice hull adsorbent carbonized under the temperature of 350°C at dosage of 12g, which is prospective to help in treatment of marine oil residues in the future.

scholarly journals THE USE OF SURFACE DRIFTING FLOATS IN THE MONITORING OF OIL SPILLS. THE PRESTIGE CASE

2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (1) ◽  
pp. 613-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilio García-Ladona ◽  
Jordi Font ◽  
Evilio del Río ◽  
Agustí Julià ◽  
Jordi Salat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Fuel Oil ◽  
Heavy Fuel Oil ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Wave Forecast ◽  
The Prestige

ABSTRACT On November 13th, 2002 the 26 year old tanker Prestige reported an emergency off the North Western Spanish coast (Galicia). The ship was carrying 77,000 tons of heavy fuel oil that started to be spilled while the vessel was towed away from the coast, affecting more than 900 km of shoreline. The location and the way the accident occurred implied a great challenge for the organization and coordinaton of actions to fight against the oil pollution. The site, just off the Finis terre cap, is a complex region from the oceanographic point of view and weather conditions, and this facilitated the fuel transport and spread over a great area. In order to take rapid preventive actions, it was crucial to have accurate spill trajectory forecasts covering direction and coastal impact. Under the coordination of public agencies and Spanish academic and research institutions, an operational monitoring system was built including wind and wave forecast, oil spill dispersion models, and visual inspection flights. Although the use of lagrangian floats was made in other incidents in the past (i.e Erika tanker) the characteristics of the Prestige accident indicated the need to deploy a relative great number of buoys as a major novelty respect to similar accidents in the past. The purpose of this contribution is to describe the operational actions performed during this particular accident, and to show the use of Lagrangian floats as an efficient procedure to improve the management and advice for such catastrophic events.

International Cooperation in Oil Spill Response

1991 ◽  
Vol 1991 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Nichols ◽  
T. H. Moller
Keyword(s):  
International Cooperation ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
International Convention ◽  
Specialized Equipment ◽  
Favorable Weather

ABSTRACT Effective response to a major marine oil spill occasionally calls for specialized equipment, personnel, and expertise that is beyond the capability of the country or company concerned. In recognition of this fact, a new International Convention on International Cooperation in Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response has been developed under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization. There is already considerable potential for international cooperation through existing regional conventions and agreements, and other less formal arrangements. This cooperation involves governmental agencies, the oil and shipping industries, commercial companies, insurers, intergovernmental organizations, and international industry organizations. This will be illustrated by reference to two recent major oil spills in Europe where this international cooperation proved very successful. The first involved the cleanup of some 15,000 metric tons of heavy crude oil that impacted the holiday island of Porto Santo in the Madeiran archipelago. Cooperation among the Portuguese government, The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, the tanker's oil pollution insurer, the Commission of the European Communities, and the governments of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom resulted in the rapid provision of specialized equipment and associated personnel to deal with the major shoreline contamination. The second incident, involving a spill of waste oil from a tanker in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden, resulted in the rapid mobilization of cleanup resources from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the U.S.S.R. under the terms of the Helsinki Convention. During favorable weather conditions, the combined forces of the five countries were successful in recovering a high percentage of the oil at sea, with the result that the contamination of shorelines was minimal.

AN EVALUATION OF OIL POLLUTION PROBABILITY IN THE LEVANTINE BASIN OFF ISRAEL

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Goldman ◽  
Ron Goldman ◽  
Eliyahu Biton ◽  
Eliyahu Biton ◽  
Isaac Gertman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Nile Delta ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Propagation Model ◽  
Offshore Platforms ◽  
Ship Traffic ◽  
The Impact

Recent gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean Sea have led to multiple operations with substantial economic interest, and they are accompanied by the risk of oil spills and their potential environmental impacts. In this this study we compute the probability of an area being polluted by oil. The first stage of this computation is to determine what the likely scenarios for oil spills are, where the areas of higher oil spill probability are and what the expected size of the spill is. This study was performed as part of the RAOP-MED project, which considered ship collision scenarios, other accidental spill from ships and rigs, and accidents that might occur during fueling operations. The results of the project include a map of oil spill probability for the eastern Mediterranean that details different scenarios, as well as a map of the maximal spill size. We use these results to create possible oil spill scenarios and run Monte-Carlo simulations of the oil spill’s fate. The simulations use the MEDSLIK oil spill propagation model, forced by the realistic atmospheric and oceanic conditions that exist off the Israeli coast, as outlined by the SKIRON and SELIPS numerical models. Potential risk sources in the area are the ship traffic that enters and leaves the Suez channel, as well as the offshore platforms on the Nile Delta and in the Israeli exclusive economic zone. We also examine the impact of the alongshore current on the probability and severity of the pollution.

scholarly journals Oil Pollution in the Southeastern Baltic Sea by Satellite Remote Sensing Data in 2004-2015

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena V. Bulycheva ◽  
Aleksander V. Krek ◽  
Andrey G. Kostianoy ◽  
Aleksander V. Semenov ◽  
Aleksandar Joksimovich
Keyword(s):  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Satellite Monitoring ◽  
Pollution Level ◽  
Radar Images ◽  
Pi Index ◽  
Favorable Weather

Abstract The results of satellite monitoring of oil pollution in the Southeastern Baltic Sea in 2004-2015 are discussed in the paper. Interannual and seasonal variability of oil pollution is investigated. A steady decrease in total oil pollution was observed from 2004 to 2011. After a sharp increase of oil pollution in 2012, oil pollution level has established at 0.39 PI Index. Maximum of oil spills is observed in the spring and summer, which is probably due to favorable weather conditions for the detection of oil spills on radar images. According to the analysis of the shapes of the detected oil spills, it was concluded that the main polluters of the sea surface are vessels. No oil spills originated from the oil platform D-6 was detected in 2004-2015. Results of numerical experiments with the Seatrack Web oil spill model show that in the case of potential discharge of oil from the D-6 platform, oil will not reach the Curonian Spit beaches during 48 h after an accident.

AN EVALUATION OF OIL POLLUTION PROBABILITY IN THE LEVANTINE BASIN OFF ISRAEL

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Goldman ◽  
Ron Goldman ◽  
Eliyahu Biton ◽  
Eliyahu Biton ◽  
Isaac Gertman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Nile Delta ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Numerical Models ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Propagation Model ◽  
Offshore Platforms ◽  
Ship Traffic ◽  
The Impact

Recent gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean Sea have led to multiple operations with substantial economic interest, and they are accompanied by the risk of oil spills and their potential environmental impacts. In this this study we compute the probability of an area being polluted by oil. The first stage of this computation is to determine what the likely scenarios for oil spills are, where the areas of higher oil spill probability are and what the expected size of the spill is. This study was performed as part of the RAOP-MED project, which considered ship collision scenarios, other accidental spill from ships and rigs, and accidents that might occur during fueling operations. The results of the project include a map of oil spill probability for the eastern Mediterranean that details different scenarios, as well as a map of the maximal spill size. We use these results to create possible oil spill scenarios and run Monte-Carlo simulations of the oil spill’s fate. The simulations use the MEDSLIK oil spill propagation model, forced by the realistic atmospheric and oceanic conditions that exist off the Israeli coast, as outlined by the SKIRON and SELIPS numerical models. Potential risk sources in the area are the ship traffic that enters and leaves the Suez channel, as well as the offshore platforms on the Nile Delta and in the Israeli exclusive economic zone. We also examine the impact of the alongshore current on the probability and severity of the pollution.

scholarly journals Oil Pollution Affects the Central Metabolism of Keystone Vachellia (Acacia) Trees

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6660
Author(s):  
Marco Ferrante ◽  
Anuma Dangol ◽  
Shoshana Didi-Cohen ◽  
Gidon Winters ◽  
Vered Tzin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Keystone Species ◽  
Desert Ecosystem ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Central Metabolism ◽  
Adult Trees ◽  
Metabolite Profiles ◽  
One Year

Vachellia (formerly Acacia) trees are native to arid environments in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, where they often support the local animal and plant communities acting as keystone species. The aim of this study was to examine whether oil pollution affected the central metabolism of the native keystone trees Vachellia tortilis (Forssk.) and V. raddiana (Savi), as either adults or seedlings. The study was conducted in the Evrona Nature Reserve, a desert ecosystem in southern Israel where two major oil spills occurred in 1975 and in 2014. Leaf samples were collected to analyze the central metabolite profiles from oil-polluted and unpolluted adult trees and from Vachellia seedlings growing in oil-polluted and unpolluted soils in an outdoor setup. We found that oil pollution had a stronger effect on one-year-old seedlings than on adult trees, reducing the levels of amino acids, sugars, and organic acids. While adult trees are mildly affected by oil pollution, the effects on young seedlings can cause a long-term reduction in the population of these keystone desert trees, ultimately threatening this entire ecosystem.

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