Paper Info
Title
On the Estimation of Thickness of Marine Oil Slicks From Sun-Glittered, Near-Infrared MERIS and MODIS Imagery: The Lebanon Oil Spill Case Study
Abstract
The detection of marine oil slicks using satellite sun-glittered optical imagery has been recently assessed. As the nature of the imaging mechanism involves the altered features of the wind-roughened oil-covered sea surface, it is expected that the radiation reflected from the oil-water system carries information about the physical properties of the floating oil layer. In this paper, we report an investigation on the capability to retrieve the average thickness of thin marine oil slicks by using the sun-glittered component of the solar radiation in the near-infrared (NIR) bands of MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer Instrument (MERIS) and MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images. The developed procedure exploits the Cox and Munk model to compute sun glint reflectance at the sea surface level for both clean and oil polluted sea surface as well. It is assumed that the Fresnel reflection coefficient of the oil-water system carries the relevant optical dependence on oil layer thickness and oil type. The expected oil-water system reflectance is computed by taking into account the non-uniform spatial distribution of the oil volume. This is achieved by considering a pdf of oil thicknesses that matches the observations on controlled oil slicks already reported in the scientific literature. MERIS and MODIS images gathered during the Lebanon oil spill occurred on July and August 2006 were selected as case study. When available, co-located SAR imagery was also considered to corroborate NIR-detected oil slicks.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1109/TGRS.2013.2242476
Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions  
Keywords
DocType
Volume
infrared imaging,marine pollution,oceanographic techniques,oil pollution,reflectivity,remote sensing,sunlight,thickness measurement,underwater optics,AD 2006 07 to 08,Cox and Munk model,Fresnel reflection coefficient,Lebanon oil spill case study,MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer Instrument,MODIS imagery,MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer,SAR imagery,floating oil layer,imaging mechanism,marine oil slicks,near-infrared MERIS imagery,near-infrared bands,oil polluted sea surface,oil-water system,optical dependence,reflected radiation,satellite sun-glittered optical imagery,sea surface level,solar radiation,sun glint reflectance,thickness estimation,wind-roughened oil-covered sea surface,Oil pollution,oil slick thickness,optical remote sensing,sun glint
Journal
52
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
1
0196-2892
4
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.89
2
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Giacomo De Carolis163.48
Maria Adamo2307.30
Guido Pasquariello3248.56