Abstract

Oil pollution is one of the major critical risks to the Egypt’s marine environment due to the heavy traffic caused by shipping in the Suez Canal and the exploration and production of crude oil. Indeed, such frequent oil pollution cases harm to the marine ecosystem and creates pressure on the socio-economic activities within the coastal economic zone of Egypt. Limited data availability creates obstacles to the precise monitoring of oil pollution and the ability to alert the environment agency to take any necessary actions. This research explored the potentiality of developing an open-source model with the use of open-access Sentinel 1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the European Space Agency to operationally monitor oil pollution at near-real time. As such, early detection and quantification of the volume of pollution creates an early warning system that supports decision makers in clean-up operations and the prosecution of the polluter. The developed model uses an open-source GIS system and Sentinel-1 SAR data to robustly detect and map oil spills and create an a report to alert the appropriate agency of the spill. The model examined a large amount of data, nearly 2000 scenes from the Sentinel 1 SAR sensor, that cover the area of study from 2014 to 2020. The model detected approximately 218 oil pollution cases within this time frame, with about 35% occurring in 2017 alone. The statistical analysis and frequency of oil pollution is mapped near the entrance of Suez Canal and the city of Port Said. This area is known as the anchoring area for the maritime ships that travel via the Suez Canal, and there are also oil and gas production nearby. It was found that the drift direction of the oil spills near Port Said move southwards, which creates a hazard for local fishing activities, Port Said touristic beaches, and marine ports. This model is the scientific and practical solution for the city council and the environmental agency to continuously monitor and receive alerts regarding any oil pollution cases in order to protect the coastal and marine socio-economic ecosystem and maintain sustainability.

Highlights

  • This step filtered the exploration to a set of 116 scenes that are suspected of probable oil spills

  • The model is capable of detecting any size of oil spill, from large oil spill cases, such as the spill on 8 June 2017 that covered nearly 94 km2, to the smallest oil spill case, such as the one on 25 September 2018 covering only 0.3 km2 (Figure 7)

  • Egyptian coastal water is under a high risk of high pollution, there is no regular near-real time or real-time monitoring system for oil pollution

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Summary

Introduction

Oil pollution is the discharge of liquid petroleum hydrocarbons into the marine environment by means of man-made activities [1]. It represents a serious threat to the marine ecosystem and coastal infrastructure. In many oil pollution cases, waste oil, oily ballast water, and other refined petroleum products such as gasoline and their by-products are released from shipping vessels. Many research studies correlated the frequency of oil spills with main shipping routes, where they found that frequent spills happen along these routes [2]. The only accepted oil discharges are below 15 ppm to prevent spills but that is not enough to prevent the impact of pollution [3]. Volatile oil molecules evaporate quickly and oxidize, the product of which is highly toxic.

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