High spatial resolution image object classification for terrestrial oil spill contamination mapping in West Siberia

Abstract

This work is a part of the OSCaR pilot study (Oil Spill Contamination mapping in Russia). A synergetic concept for an object based and multi temporal mapping and classification system for terrestrial oil spill pollution using a test area in West Siberia is presented. An object oriented image classification system is created to map contaminated soils, vegetation and changes in the oil exploration well infrastructure in high resolution data. Due to the limited spectral resolution of Quickbird data context information and image object structure are used as additional features building a structural object knowledge base for the area. The distance of potentially polluted areas to industrial land use and infrastructure objects is utilized to classify crude oil contaminated surfaces. Additionally the potential of Landsat data for dating of oil spill events using change indicators is tested with multi temporal Landsat data from 1987, 1995 and 2001. OSCaR defined three sub-projects: (1) high resolution mapping of crude oil contaminated surfaces, (2) mapping of industrial infrastructure change, (3) dating of oil spill events using multi temporal Landsat data. Validation of the contamination mapping results has been done with field data from Russian experts provided by the Yugra State University in Khanty-Mansiyskiy. The developed image object structure classification system has shown good results for the severely polluted areas with good overall classification accuracy. However it has also revealed the need for direct mapping of hydrocarbon substances. Oil spill event dating with Landsat data was very much limited by the low spatial resolution of Landsat TM 5 data, small scale character of oil spilled surfaces and limited information about oil spill dates.