ARASAT
Satellite view of coastal waters

Products · Marine

Oil Spill Detection and Tracking

Find the slick through cloud and at night, then follow it as it moves.

Engagement

Delivered per maritime area as a monitoring engagement; automated standing watch in development

Overview

Where is the oil, where is it going, and what will it reach?

Oil damps the small surface waves that radar reflects, so a slick appears as a dark patch against the roughened sea. The product detects and delineates surface oil from SAR imagery while separating real oil from look-alikes such as wind shadows, algal films and low-wind zones. Its value is the sequence: extent at first detection, direction and rate of drift, area at each subsequent pass, and the stretch of coastline in the path.

C-band SAR, all-weather, day and night
Sensor
1–3 days over most maritime areas
Revisit
Slick polygons and drift sequence
Output
Optical imagery, wind and current fields
Supporting

System architecture

Schematic of the main components, from inputs to delivered outputs.

Example outputs

  • Two consecutive SAR images with detected oil slicks highlighted and a line showing the displacement of the largest slick

    Example output: oil slicks detected and delineated on two consecutive SAR acquisitions, with the displacement of the largest slick between passes.

How it works

Pipeline and maturity of each stage

  1. 01

    Scene acquisition

    Every SAR pass over the monitored maritime area is retrieved and calibrated; optical scenes are added where available.

  2. 02

    Detection and delineation

    Dark-spot detection on the radar backscatter, with models that reject wind shadows, biogenic films and low-wind zones, produces slick polygons and areas.

  3. 03

    Drift and evolution tracking

    Detections are associated across successive passes to give movement direction, drift rate, area change and dispersion over time.

  4. 04

    Impact and alerting

    In development

    The affected coastal stretch and sensitive receptors in the drift path are projected; alerts are issued on detection. A fully automated standing watch is in development.

Data used

  • Sentinel-1 SAR
  • Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 optical
  • Wind and ocean current fields
  • Infrastructure and shipping-route layers

Methods and models

  • SAR dark-spot detection
  • Look-alike discrimination
  • Multi-pass slick association
  • Drift and dispersion analysis

Outputs

  • Slick polygons (shapefile / GeoJSON)
  • Extent and drift statistics
  • Sequence map
  • Alerts and PDF report

Who it is for

  • Ports and maritime administrations
  • Offshore operators
  • Environmental protection agencies
  • Insurers and response contractors

More in Marine

All marine products
  • Drift and evolution trackingEngagement
  • Marine pollution monitoringEngagement
  • Coastal impact assessmentEngagement
  • Standing watchIn development

From space. For Earth.

Start with ARASAT

Tell us what you need to monitor, understand or protect. Our team works with you from the first conversation to a running program.

Contact usOpen the platform