Advances in SAR Remote Sensing of Oceans

Xiaofeng Li, Huadong Guo, Kun-Shan Chen, Xiaofeng Yang

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351235785
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Engineering General
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The oceans cover approximately 71% of Earth's surface, 90% of the biosphere and contains 97% of Earth's water. Since the first launch of SEASAT satellite in 1978, an increasing number of SAR satellites have or will become available, such as the European Space Agency's ERS-1/-2, ENVISAT, and Sentinel-1 series; the Canadian RADARSAT-1/-2 and the upcoming RADARSAT Constellation Mission series satellites; the Italian COSMO-SkyMed satellites, the German TERRASAR-X and TANDEM-X, and the Chinese GAOFEN-3 SAR, among others. Recently, European Space Agency has launched a new generation of SAR satellites, Sentinel-1A in 2014 and Sentinel-1B in 2016. These SAR satellites provide researchers with free and open SAR images necessary to carry out their research on the global oceans. The scope of Advances in SAR Remote Sensing of Oceans is to demonstrate the types of information that can be obtained from SAR images of the oceans, and the cutting-edge methods needed for analysing SAR images.

Written by leading experts in the field, and divided into four sections, the book presents the basic principles of radar backscattering from the ocean surface; introduces the recent progresses in SAR remote sensing of dynamic coastal environment and management; discusses the state-of-the-art methods to monitor parameters or phenomena related to the dynamic ocean environment; and deals specifically with new techniques and findings of marine atmospheric boundary layer observations.

Advances in SAR Remote Sensing of Oceans is a very comprehensive and up-to-date reference intended for use by graduate students, researchers, practitioners, and R&D engineers working in the vibrant field of oceans, interested to understand how SAR remote sensing can support oceanography research and applications.

Section II

Coast Zone and Man-Made Object Detection

Recent progress in SAR remote sensing of coastal environment and management.

4	Oil Fields Observation Using Polarimetric SAR Ferdinando Nunziata and Andrea Buono

CONTENTS

4.1 Introduction

4.1.1 Oil Fields

4.1.2 SAR for Sea Oil Fields Monitoring

4.2 Theoretical Background

4.2.1 SAR Polarimetry

4.2.2 Sea Oil Pollution Observation

4.2.3 Metallic Targets at Sea Monitoring

4.3 Showcases

4.3.1 Sea Oil Slick Detection and Characterization

4.3.2 Detection of Man-Made Metallic Targets at Sea

4.3.3 Sea Oil Field Observation

4.4 Conclusions

References

4.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter deals with marine environmental and defence added-value products that are based on remotely sensed measurements collected by satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The products addressed are sea oil slicks and man-made metallic targets at sea, e.g., oil and gas rigs, platforms and ships. Hereinafter, the two products are referred to as oil fields. The latter are of significant value in the context of Earth Observation (EO) as they are strictly connected with the protection of the environment and to the surveillance of critical infrastructures (U.S. Department of Energy 2017). Oil fields play a key role in the world economy, and therefore, they call for a continuous monitoring even in the most adverse conditions that can range from natural disasters (e.g., the destruction of oil rigs accompanied by release of oil during hurricane events) to accidents (e.g., the Deepwater Horizon well blowout that occurred in Gulf of Mexico in 2010). See Figure 4.1.

In this chapter, the most up-to-date polarimetric methods to perform SAR offshore oil field monitoring are presented and discussed. The chapter is organized as follows: Sea oil field scenario is introduced in Section 4.1; SAR sea oil fields observation and the advantages resulting from polarimetric methods are reviewed in Section 4.2; meaningful showcases are shown and critically discussed in Section 4.3; the chapter ends with key remarks summarized in Section 4.4.

FIGURE 4.1 Offshore oil fields: (a) NEW ORLEANS, La. (July 12, 2005)—The semi-submersible British Petroleum oil platform Thunder Horse sank by the Hurricane Dennis, New Orleans 2005. (Courtesy of the USCG photographer Robert M. Reed.) (b) The Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig accident, Gulf of Mexico, 2010. (Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard, Washington, DC.)

4.1.1 OIL FIELDS

An oil field is an area that includes oil wells extracting crude oil from below the ground or the bottom of the oceans. Although oil and gas extraction is conducted mostly onshore, the recent discovery of a significant number of deposits in the seabed increased the amount of offshore installations (International Energy Agency 2017). In this chapter, offshore oil fields (hereinafter oil fields) are addressed. They typically resemble small self-contained towns representing a very complex marine scenario in which moving and fixed man-made metallic targets and infrastructures including ships, tankers, oil rigs, pipelines, and drilling platforms having different sizes, shapes, and structures, are installed and deployed at sea all together (see Figure 4.2). There are more than 65,000 oil fields worldwide, 60% of which are located offshore. However, about 94% of known oil fields are concentrated in the Middle East, off the Brazilian coast, in the North Caspian Sea, and in the Gulf of Mexico. The largest oil field, known as Safaniya field, is in the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia), and its daily production of heavy crude oil is estimated to be up to 1.5 million barrels. Oil fields represent the core of the petrochemical and gas industry, and therefore they need to be continuously monitored. In addition, they pose an important environmental risk in case of accidents or natural disasters since a large amount of oil is released. Hence, coastal managers and those responsible for oil field security are interested in knowing the real-time positions of all the oil-related infrastructures in order to identify possible oil pipeline leaks on the sea surface and to detect potential damages to the infrastructures.

All this calls for a robust and effective surveillance and monitoring system. Within this context, spaceborne remote sensing plays a key role, being a non-cooperative technique that ensures a synoptic view of the Earth. The key sensor is the SAR, a coherent microwave imaging radar, that guarantees all-day and almost all-weather imaging capabilities with a moderate-to-fine spatial resolution. SAR observation of oil fields is not an easy task due to both technical (e.g., false alarms, speckle, etc.) and technological (e.g., limited spatial resolution, insufficient spatial and/or temporal coverage, etc.) issues (Brekke and Solberg 2005, S...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Editors
• Contributors
• SECTION I Background
• SECTION II Coast Zone and Man-Made Object Detection
• SECTION III Ocean Environment Monitoring
• SECTION IV Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer Observations
• Index