Oil spill and newly formed sea ice detection, characterization, and mapping in the Barents Sea using remote sensing by SAR

This project is a joint effort between UiT The Arctic University of Norway and P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Russian Academy of Science, and their respective partners. It addresses the urgent need of environmental monitoring of the Barents Sea, with a particular focus on marine pollution from the petroleum industry & shipping and its look-alikes. The outcome of this project has a clear relevance to satellite service providers and oil spill preparedness and clean-up organizations. The aim of this project is to contribute to improvement of the environmental monitoring capability by satellite of marine pollution. Mineral oil spills and newly formed sea ice are detected within SAR images as both have a low radar backscatter return, but for environmental monitoring it is essential to separate the two. Within this project we have therefore investigated air- and spaceborne radar images to investigated if polarimetric information can be used to separate the two. We identified that polarimetric information could separate them, but that the air-borne radar was preferable due to the good signal to noise ratio. The effect of noise on the radar signature was also investigated, so that we could focus our effort on parameters that were found to have a lower sensitivity to noise and the satellite incidence angle. Together with the Russian partners we have also identified that mineral oil, plan oil and newly frozen sea ice have different effects on the small waves within the radar images. Within the project we have developed a detection method for dark surface films in the Barents Sea in medium resolution Sentinel-1A and -1B images. This enables us to identify dark surface areas automatically and accurately within a large dataset of Sentinel-1 images. In collaboration with our Russian partners and the Norwegian Ice Service we are currently working on improving the method by accurately classifying these areas. The project has established a good collaboration with parties in the energy industry and a satellite-based service provider on the study of produced water from oilrigs. We analyzed both high resolution multi-polarimetric data as well as medium resolution freely available Sentinel-1 images. For the high-resolution data only a limited number of images are available, however they were specially acquired to overlap with two oil rigs on the Norwegian shelf over a period of 3 years, and from Sentinel-1 data all from two years are analyzed. The results are also compared with optical images from the Sentinel-2 satellite from the same two years. The satellite detections were combined with the in-situ data from the platform operators, the released volume, and the oil concentration, we were able to determine the limitations and possibilities of using this operationally freely available Sentinel-1 images for environmental monitoring of low concentration oil releases.

Within the project we investigated the satellite signatures of produced water slicks. To carry out this work collaboration with two oil companies were established and resulted in increased collaboration with the Norwegian Clean Seas Association for Operating Companies and the oil spill detection service at KSAT. The work is presently being extended to the mapping of naturally occurring thin oil seeps in the Barents Sea through national interdisciplinary collaboration at UiT, and their drift patterns is being explored through at UiT/Met Norway collaborative PhD student. Collaboration with researchers from JPL/NASA (USA) in how to separate a mineral oil spill from newly formed sea ice in an Arctic Ocean was carried out. Such a method has a societal benefit should an accidental spill occur. The outcome from this was also highlighted in the Nansen Legacy Annual report for 2020.

This project is a joint effort between UiT The Arctic University of Norway and P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Russian Academy of Science, and their respective partners. It addresses the urgent need of environmental monitoring of the Barents Sea, with a particular focus on marine pollution from the petroleum industry & shipping and its look-alikes. The aim of this project is to contribute to improvement of the environmental monitoring capability by satellite of marine pollution in the Barents Sea. This shall be achieved through development of advanced algorithms for analysis of synthetic aperture radar data and mapping of the occurrences of oil spills and their look-alikes. The main challenges are to distinguish mineral oil pollution from its look-alikes and to detect and characterize abnormal releases of produced water from oil rigs. The outcome of this project has a clear value and use for satellite service providers, such as Kongsberg Satellite Services, and for end users represented by organisations such as The Norwegian Clean Seas Association for Operating Companies. Satellite service providers can directly utilize the scientific and technical outcome of this project in their synthetic aperture radar oil spill monitoring service to provide enhanced information retrieval from satellite remote sensing of marine pollution.