Monitoring of Oil Spills in the North Caspian Sea using SAR Imagery and Multi-Sensor Satellite Data

Since may 2007 the regular operational satellite monitoring of the north Caspian sea was set up and carried out. The purpose of the project is to monitor the ecological situation (namely, oil spills) particularly around the oil-rig offshore exploration platforms operating in Russian and Kazakhstan sectors, as well in the overall area of the North Caspian sea. The used data set includes RADARSAT and ENVISAT SAR, ENVISAT MERIS imagery and meteorological data available in Internet. The methodology of monitoring includes expert analysis of the SAR images, extraction of oil spills and oil spill-alikes, comparison with weather data and oil dynamics from a series of images using the geo-informational approach developed by authors. It was shown that the spaceborne radar is the valuable source of information while performing the off-shore oil and gas exploration activities.