Polarimetric signature for oil spill observation

Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) oil spill observation is not at all an easy task since the presence of many natural phenomena and surfactants call for complex and time-consuming classification techniques, generally based on the use of ancillary external data. In this study, polarization diversity is employed to assist oil spill observation techniques. The polarization signature, commonly used for land application, is firstly read in terms of a sea surface scattering mechanism with and without surface slicks. Experiments, accomplished over multilook complex (MLC) C-band SIR-C/X-SAR data, show that the polarization signature can be useful both for observing oil spills and for distinguishing between oil spills and biogenic look-alikes.