Oil spill remote sensors: Review, trends and new developments
- Environmental Technology Center, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)
Remote-sensors for application to oil spills are assessed, and new developments and trends highlighted. The most common sensor used at this time, is an infrared camera or an IR/UV system. This sensor class can detect oil under a variety of conditions, discriminate oil from some backgrounds and has the lowest cost of any sensor. The inherent weaknesses include the inability to discriminate oil on beaches, among weeds or debris and under certain lighting conditions, oil is not detected. Furthermore, water-in-oil emulsions are sometimes not detected in the infrared. New technology has made IR technology very cheap and practical, so despite its limitations, it will be a very important tool in the future. The laser fluorosensor is an instrument of the future because of its unique capability to identify oil on backgrounds that include water, soil, ice and snow. It is the only sensor that can positively discriminate oil on most backgrounds. Radar offers the only potential for large area searches and foul weather remote sensing. Radar is costly, requires a dedicated aircraft, and is prone to many interferences. False targets can be as high as 95%. Equipment operating in the visible spectrum, such as cameras and scanners, is useful for documentation or providing a basis for the overlay of other data. It is not useful beyond this because oil shows no spectral characteristics in the visible region. Less use will be made of visible equipment in future years. The use of satellite imagery is reviewed. Optical sensors offer only marginal capability to the oil spill worker. Radar satellite imagery may provide useful overviews on known spills and very large spills. One important new trend will be the use of radar satellite for wide-area searching.
- OSTI ID:
- 478151
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970319--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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