Characterization of Oil Pollution around the Oil Rocks Production Site in the Caspian Sea Using Spaceborne Polarimetric SAR Imagery

摘要

Based on the processing and analysis of radar imagery received by the Radarsat-2 satellite in summer 2009 over the Oil Rocks (Neftyanyye Kamni or Neft Dashlari) oil production site in the Caspian Sea, it is shown that the images are full-fledged products, making it possible to retrieve information on the oil pollution and, under certain assumptions, estimate volumes of industrial oil spills. To map the space-time distribution of oil patches, the wide-swath mode of the Radarsat-2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) with vertical W polarization of signal is most suitable. The polarimetric regime itself does not improve the identification of oil pollution. The special quad-polarization mode in these experiments has not showed substantial advantages; the maximum contrasts were observed at vertical polarization. Estimates of oil spills volumes are obtained.