OPERATIONAL SATELLITE MONITORING AND DETECTION FOR
OIL SPIL IN OFFSHORE OF UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Dr. H. Harahsheh?, Dr. S. Essa b M. Shiobara®, T. Nishidai? , T. Onuma*
? Global Scan technologies L.L.C, P.O. Box 1286, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (husseinh@belhasa.ae)
? Dept. of Geology, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE (smgal@hotmail.com)
* Japan Oil Development Co., Ltd., 1-21-2, Shinkawa, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0033, Japan(mshioba@jodco.co.jp)
4 JGI, Inc., 1-5-21, Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo ! 12-0012, Japan (nishidai@jgi.co.jp)
KEY WORDS: Remote Sensing, Environment, Marine, Pollution, Monitoring, Radar, Change Detection
ABSTRACT:
Many satellite-borne image data have been acquired in the
demonstrated oil spill related features at sea. Severe oil spills w
dumping from passing ships. Serious damage to fishery,
Arabian Gulf since the mid 80's by different space agencies and have
ere caused occasionally by accidental or deliberate oil sludge
water desalination plants and natural habitats are concerned. The work
done is the first step towards oil spill monitoring of the offshore UAE and its adjacent waters.
The interim results of this study demonstrate
and confirm that the offshore UAE faces frequent occurrences of oil spills both in the
Arabian Gulf and in the Gulf of Oman. Offshore Fujairah shows considerable spill concentration in multi-temporal image analysis.
Ballast water containing residual oil is discharged from oil tan
Discriminating oil spills is an important step for planni
attainable with the current acquisition conditions. As examined on
radar and optical sensor including thermal infrared b
analysis are the important factors for the implement
kers there and is identified as the source of those spills.
ng intense monitoring scheme based on space-borne imagery, which is
a number of images which were observed by synthetic aperture
and between mid 70's and early 2002, continuous data acquisition and rapid
ation of Oil spill monitoring system. The forthcoming ESA's ENVISAT and
near future Japanese ALOS and Canadian RADARSAT-II in conjunction with other internationally available earth observation
satellites will play significant roles in continuous oil spill monitoring.
1. INTRODUCTION
Influx of oil from tankers and offshore oil operations are major
causes of pollution in the marine environment. Ballast water
and other oily water discharged into the Arabian Gulf ranged
from 400,000 to 750,000 tones in 1986. According to statistics
of the US Coat Guard (1990), sources of oil in the sea are
classified into 6 categories. By far the highest contributor to oil
pollution in the ocean, about 52%, result from a mix of
materials and waste which make up urban runoff and discharge
from land-based industrial plants. Another 19% of the oil in the
sea is directly attributable to the world's oil industry. Tow per
cent of this occurs in spills from rigs and platforms during the
exploration and production phases, and only 5 % of oil
pollution in the oceans attributable to accidents involving oil
tankers. On the other hand one big spill may seriously damage
to life in the sea and coastal areas. The remaining 13 96 of
hydrocarbons in the oceans is absorbed from the atmosphere by
particle settlement and rain-wash.
The marine environment in the Arabian Gulf region is also
under considerable threat from intentional or accidental oil
spills, ballast water discharged, dredging and infilling for
coastal development, and uncontrolled sewage and industrial
wastewater discharges. Oil discharged from ships imposes a
much great long-term threat to the marine environment than one
big accident. Monitoring illegal oil discharges is thus an
important component in ensuring compliance with marine
protection legislation and general protection of the coastal
environments.
The study area were selected as evaluation sites for
demonstrating oil spill appearance in daily operations and for
testing the resolution necessary for oil slick characterization.
There have already been several remarkable accidents involving
the loss of large quantities of crude oil from disabled tankers
(Table 1).
| Date Volume of | Oil Location |
spilled oil | type
(tones)
2001/01/14 1,300 - | Fuel | mile offshore of
1,500 Jable Ali
2001/01/24 | 300—900 | Heavy | 7 mile NE offshore
Abu Dhabi
1998/01/07 | 5,000 -|Crude | 5 miles — offshore
10,000 Ajman
1994/03/30 | 16,000 light 96 miles offshore
Fujeirah
Table 1. major oil spill incidents offshore UAE
In the last 10 years, the satellites-borne SAR sensors have been
broadly used for oil spill monitoring and have provided
excellent data. Their advantages are the capability of wide
coverage under any weather conditions all day long, the near
real time data delivery and the improved cost-efficiency when
compared with airborne SAR surveillance. Some very
successful examples of ERS SAR applications in marine oil
spill detection have been reported, such as the near-real-time
monitoring in Norway (Pederson et al. 1995), monitoring oil
spill pollution with ERS SAR in the Mediterranean ( Pavlakis et
058
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