Oil Spill Classification Research Articles

Improving oil classification quality from oil spill fingerprint beyond six sigma approach

This study involves the use of quality engineering in oil spill classification based on oil spill fingerprinting from GC-FID and GC–MS employing the six-sigma approach. The oil spills are recovered from various water areas of Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah (East Malaysia). The study approach used six sigma methodologies that effectively serve as the problem solving in oil classification extracted from the complex mixtures of oil spilled dataset. The analysis of six sigma link with the quality engineering improved the organizational performance to achieve its objectivity of the environmental forensics. The study reveals that oil spills are discriminated into four groups' viz. diesel, hydrocarbon fuel oil (HFO), mixture oil lubricant and fuel oil (MOLFO) and waste oil (WO) according to the similarity of the intrinsic chemical properties. Through the validation, it confirmed that four discriminant component, diesel, hydrocarbon fuel oil (HFO), mixture oil lubricant and fuel oil (MOLFO) and waste oil (WO) dominate the oil types with a total variance of 99.51% with ANOVA giving Fstat>Fcritical at 95% confidence level and a Chi Square goodness test of 74.87. Results obtained from this study reveals that by employing six-sigma approach in a data-driven problem such as in the case of oil spill classification, good decision making can be expedited.

Comparison of Oil Spill Classifications Using Fully and Compact Polarimetric SAR Images

In this paper, we present a comparison between several algorithms for oil spill classifications using fully and compact polarimetric SAR images. Oil spill is considered as one of the most significant sources of marine pollution. As a major difficulty of SAR-based oil spill detection algorithms is the classification between mineral and biogenic oil, we focus on quantitatively analyzing and comparing fully and compact polarimetric satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) modes to detect hydrocarbon slicks over the sea surface, discriminating them from weak-damping surfactants, such as biogenic slicks. The experiment was conducted on quad-pol SAR data acquired during the Norwegian oil-on-water experiment in 2011. A universal procedure was used to extract the features from quad-, dual- and compact polarimetric SAR modes to rank different polarimetric SAR modes and common supervised classifiers. Among all the dual- and compact polarimetric SAR modes, the π/2 mode has the best performance. The best supervised classifiers vary and depended on whether sufficient polarimetric information can be obtained in each polarimetric mode. We also analyzed the influence of the number of polarimetric parameters considered as inputs for the supervised classifiers, onto the detection/discrimination performance. We discovered that a feature set with four features is sufficient for most polarimetric feature-based oil spill classifications. Moreover, dimension reduction algorithms, including principle component analysis (PCA) and the local linear embedding (LLE) algorithm, were employed to learn low dimensional and distinctive information from quad-polarimetric SAR features. The performance of the new feature sets has comparable performance in oil spill classification.

Sea Oil Spill Detection Method Using SAR Imagery Combined with Object-Based Image Analysis and Fuzzy Logic

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a sensor with all weather and day and night working capacity, has been considered one of the most powerful tools for sea surface oil spill detection. However, lookalikes frequently appear in SAR images, limiting the operational use of SAR to detect oil spilled at sea. 20 scenes of Envisat ASAR images, which were acquired during the oil spill accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, are utilized, with the objective to study how to better differentiate oil spills from lookalikes. 145 and 134 samples for oil spill and lookalike, respectively, are extracted, and their object-based geometric, physical and textural features are analyzed, in order to find the most effective features for oil spill classification. Based on the results of feature analysis, fuzzy logic (FL) is employed to construct a classifier for oil spill detection. One advantage of the proposed method is that it can produce the crisp probability of a dark segment being oil spill. The experiment shows that our method can derive promising result.

Adaptive Weibull Multiplicative Model and Multilayer Perceptron neural networks for dark-spot detection from SAR imagery.

Oil spills represent a major threat to ocean ecosystems and their environmental status. Previous studies have shown that Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), as its recording is independent of clouds and weather, can be effectively used for the detection and classification of oil spills. Dark formation detection is the first and critical stage in oil-spill detection procedures. In this paper, a novel approach for automated dark-spot detection in SAR imagery is presented. A new approach from the combination of adaptive Weibull Multiplicative Model (WMM) and MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) neural networks is proposed to differentiate between dark spots and the background. The results have been compared with the results of a model combining non-adaptive WMM and pulse coupled neural networks. The presented approach overcomes the non-adaptive WMM filter setting parameters by developing an adaptive WMM model which is a step ahead towards a full automatic dark spot detection. The proposed approach was tested on 60 ENVISAT and ERS2 images which contained dark spots. For the overall dataset, an average accuracy of 94.65% was obtained. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is very robust and effective where the non-adaptive WMM & pulse coupled neural network (PCNN) model generates poor accuracies.

Satellite Oil Spill Detection Using Artificial Neural Networks

Oil spills represent a major threat to ocean ecosystems and their health. Illicit pollution requires continuous monitoring and satellite remote sensing technology represents an attractive option for operational oil spill detection. Previous studies have shown that active microwave satellite sensors, particularly Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) can be effectively used for the detection and classification of oil spills. Oil spills appear as dark spots in SAR images. However, similar dark spots may arise from a range of unrelated meteorological and oceanographic phenomena, resulting in misidentification. A major focus of research in this area is the development of algorithms to distinguish oil spills from `look-alikes'. This paper describes the development of a new approach to SAR oil spill detection employing two different Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), used in sequence. The first ANN segments a SAR image to identify pixels belonging to candidate oil spill features. A set of statistical feature parameters are then extracted and used to drive a second ANN which classifies objects into oil spills or look-alikes. The proposed algorithm was trained using 97 ERS-2 SAR and ENVSAT ASAR images of individual verified oil spills or/and look-alikes. The algorithm was validated using a large dataset comprising full-swath images and correctly identified 91.6% of reported oil spills and 98.3% of look-alike phenomena. The segmentation stage of the new technique outperformed the established edge detection and adaptive thresholding approaches. An analysis of feature descriptors highlighted the importance of image gradient information in the classification stage.

A comparative study of different classification techniques for marine oil spill identification using RADARSAT-1 imagery

The discrimination of oil spills and look-alike phenomena (e.g., low wind area, wind front area and natural slicks) on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images is a crucial task in marine oil spill detection. Many classification techniques can be employed for this purpose. In order to make the best use of the large variety of statistical and machine learning classification methods, it is necessary to assess their performance differences and make recommendations for classifier selection and improvement. The objective of this paper is to compare different classification techniques for oil-spill detection in RADARSAT-1 imagery. The data of this study consists of 15 features of 192 oil spills and look-alikes identified by Canadian Ice Service between 2004 and 2008 off Canada's east and west coastal areas. The studied classifiers include the Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), tree-based ensemble classifiers (bagging, bundling and boosting), Generalized Additive Model (GAM) and Penalized Linear Discriminant Analysis (PLDA). Two performance measures, the specificity at fixed sensitivity (80%) and the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), were estimated using cross-validation to evaluate the performance of classifiers at a high sensitivity. Overall, the bundling technique which achieved a median specificity of 90.7%, at sensitivity of 80%, significantly outperformed the second best (i.e. bagging) by 1.5 percentage points, and the worst (i.e. ANN) by 15 percentage points. The median values of AUC measure indicated consistent results. Bundling and bagging achieved comparable median AUC values of about 92%, followed by GAM and PLDA, with ANN yielding the smallest. Most classifiers (SVM, bundling and especially PLDA and ANN) performed significantly better on datasets pre-processed by log-transformation and standardization than on the original dataset. These results demonstrate the importance and benefit of selecting the optimal classifiers for oil spill classification, and configuring the classifiers by proper feature construction techniques.

Geosensing systems engineering for ocean security and sustainable coastal zone management

Three major threats to ocean security and coastal zone sustainability - global warming, the loss of ocean biodiversity, and pollution - are combining to threaten the ecological integrity of our marine environment and life support systems. We put forward a geomatics-based systems engineering architecture to identify the location and extent of oil spills, thereby improving the ecological integrity of the world’s oceans and helping contingency planners to determine required assets, personnel and other resources. This real-time, event-based and cost effective emergency management decision support system can aid in the classification, detection, and monitoring of oil spills in the marine environment. The developed Synthetic-Aperture Radar (SAR) processing and calibration techniques efficiently monitor environmental changes in inaccessible ocean regions, characterize oil spill scenarios, and help to identify spill sources. The system is used to improve emergency management in the Gulf of Mexico, with application to oil spills arising from Hurricane Katrina.

One-class classification for oil spill detection

SAR oil spill classification is a challenging topic, which is tackled by semi-empirical ad hoc approaches supported by very qualified experts. In all cases, the feature space is empirically defined, and two-class classification approaches are used. Although this approach allows achieving acceptable operational results, there is still room for improving both the comprehension of the physical phenomenon and the performance of classification techniques. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to oil-spill classification based on the paradigm of one-class classification. A classifier is trained using only examples of oil spills, instead of using oil spills and look-alikes, as in two-class approaches. Further, since the feature space is empirically defined, we also propose an objective technique to select the most powerful one that is suited for the oil-spill detection task at hand. Results on two case study datasets are reported to validate the proposed approach.

A GIS approach to mapping oil spills in a marine environment

A geographic information system (GIS) can contribute significantly to the correct interpretation of the slick signatures visible on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. Initially, GIS has proven to be an excellent management tool for resource assessment, oil spill response and planning, and damage assessment. The GIS approach to the problem of oil spill mapping includes integration of the geographical, remote sensing, oil and gas production/infrastructure data and slick signatures, detected by SAR, in GIS. Compiled from data from several sources including nautical maps, geodatabases, ground truth and remote sensing data, GIS allows the retrieval of key information, such as predicting oil spill locations, revealing offshore/onshore sources, and estimating the intensity of oil pollution. SAR and GIS technologies can improve the identification and classification of oil spills, leading to construction of the final product, an oil spill distribution map. This approach has been applied to oil spill mapping in the Sea of Okhotsk, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. We conclude that the combination of GIS and SAR technologies provides an ideal solution for understanding the spatial/temporal distribution of oil spills in the marine environment and is considered as the core of the oil spill monitoring system.

An object‐oriented methodology to detect oil spills

A new automated methodology for oil spill detection is presented, by which full synthetic aperture radar (SAR) high‐resolution image scenes can be processed. The methodology relies on the object‐oriented approach and profits from image segmentation techniques to detected dark formations. The detection of dark formations is based on a threshold definition that is fully adaptive to local contrast and brightness of large image segments. For the detection process, two empirical formulas are developed that also permit the classification of oil spills according to their brightness. A fuzzy classification method is used to classify dark formations as oil spills or look‐alikes. Dark formations are not isolated and features of both dark areas and sea environment are considered. Various sea environments that affect oil spill shape and boundaries are grouped in two knowledge bases, used for the classification of dark formations. The accuracy of the method for the 12 SAR images used is 99.5% for the class of oil spills, and 98.8% for that of look‐alikes. Fresh oil spills, fresh spills affected by natural phenomena, oil spills without clear stripping, small linear oil spills, oil spills with broken parts and amorphous oil spills can be successfully detected.

Oil Spill Detection Methods in SAR Images

Oil spill has tremendous effect on marine environment. Therefore, it is significant for protecting marine environment to get oil spill information timely. Presently, the methods which most countries adopt to detect oil spill are mainly direct detection or remote sensing methods. Among these methods, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), one technique of remote sensing methods, has been becoming a hot research field nowadays. This paper concludes main characters of SAR images in oil spill detection. It introduces, compares and analyses the oil spill detection steps and realized techniques. There are four steps in oil spill detection process, including filtering, target detection, feature extraction and classification. Filtering can be completed by several filtering techniques, such as Lee, advanced Lee and Frost. General speaking, there are four methods can realize target detection, which are single threshold, adaptive threshold, wavelet transform and max entropy method. About the third step, feature extraction, 12 features can be used to represent oil spill. Classification is a key and difficult step in oil spill detection, in which algorithms based on Bayes and neural network can be adopted. Finally, the paper points out the development direction of oil spill detection in SAR images.

OSRO Classifications Program: Old Topic, New Look1

ABSTRACT The Oil Spill Classification Program has had it ups and downs. Over the past 6 years the mandates of the Federal Government, the needs of the oil industry, and the desires of the Oil Spill Removal Organizations (OSROs) have been difficult to balance. The many changes that the program has undergone have been primarily due to our customer's needs; however, are we really sure who the customer is? Is it the American public or has it become the OSROs themselves? Have we forgotten that the program was conceived as a planner's writer's tool? The ongoing development of the Response Resource Inventory (RRI) and the OSRO Classification Program has been cause for both alarm and optimism. The job is difficult and many “cracks in the systems” have been identified; however, the potential for a truly outstanding and beneficial program is great. So we continue to move forward and the future is bright!

THE COAST GUARD'S FORENSIC OIL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM

ABSTRACT The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), as amended in 1972, tasks the Coast Guard with development of “procedures and techniques to be employed in identifying…. oil and hazardous substances….” In carrying out this portion of the service's environmental mandate, the Coast Guard Research and Development Center has developed first generation laboratory and field systems for the forensic identification and classification of oil spills. The laboratory system utilizes four independent analytical techniques (infrared and fluorescence spectroscopy, gas and thin-layer chromatography) to match spill samples with suspected sources, while the field system utilizes two analytical techniques (fluorescence spectroscopy and thin-layer chromatography). The field system is designed to give each Captain of the Port or Marine Safety Office the capability to rapidly identify the source of the majority of oil spills, or in more difficult cases to provide sufficient information to justify the collection of additional samples for more detailed analysis by the laboratory system.