Veronique Miegebielle

Hyperspectral and Radar Airborne Imagery over Controlled Release of Oil at Sea

Remote sensing techniques are commonly used by Oil and Gas companies to monitor hydrocarbon on the ocean surface. The interest lies not only in exploration but also in the monitoring of the maritime environment. Occurrence of natural seeps on the sea surface is a key indicator of the presence of mature source rock in the subsurface. These natural seeps, as well as the oil slicks, are commonly detected using radar sensors but the addition of optical imagery can deliver extra information such as thickness and composition of the detected oil, which is critical for both exploration purposes and efficient cleanup operations. Today, state-of-the-art approaches combine multiple data collected by optical and radar sensors embedded on-board different airborne and spaceborne platforms, to ensure wide spatial coverage and high frequency revisit time. Multi-wavelength imaging system may create a breakthrough in remote sensing applications, but it requires adapted processing techniques that need to be developed. To explore performances offered by multi-wavelength radar and optical sensors for oil slick monitoring, remote sensing data have been collected by SETHI (Système Expérimental de Télédection Hyperfréquence Imageur), the airborne system developed by ONERA (the French Aerospace Lab), during an oil spill cleanup exercise carried out in 2015 in the North Sea, Europe. The uniqueness of this dataset lies in its high spatial resolution, low noise level and quasi-simultaneous acquisitions of different part of the EM spectrum. Specific processing techniques have been developed to extract meaningful information associated with oil-covered sea surface. Analysis of this unique and rich dataset demonstrates that remote sensing imagery, collected in both optical and microwave domains, allows estimating slick surface properties such as the age of the emulsion released at sea, the spatial abundance of oil and the relative concentration of hydrocarbons remaining on the sea surface.

Analysis of the reflectance spectra of oil emulsion spilled on the sea surface

Airborne remote sensing appears useful for monitoring oil spill accident or detecting illegal oil discharges. In that context, hyperspectral imagery in the SWIR range shows a high potential to describe oil spills. Indeed reflectance spectra of an oil emulsion layer show a wide variety of shapes according to its thickness or emulsion rate. Although based on laboratory measurements, it seems that these two parameters are insufficient to completely describe them. It appears that the way emulsion is performed leads to different reflectance spectra. Hence this paper will present a model which tends to simulate reflectance spectra of an oil emulsion layer over the sea water. To derive an analytical expression, some approximations and assumptions will be done. The result of this model shows high similarities with laboratory measurements and seems able to simulate most of the shapes of reflectance spectra. It also shows that a key parameter to define the shape of the reflectance spectra is the statistical distribution of water bubbles size in the emulsion. The description of this distribution function, if measurable, should be integrated into the methodology of elaboration of spectral libraries in the future.

Multifrequency Radar Imagery and Characterization of Hazardous and Noxious Substances at Sea

Maritime pollution by chemical products occurs at much lower frequency than spills of oil, however the consequences of a chemical spill can be more wide-reaching than those of oil. While detection and characterization of hydrocarbons have been the subject of numerous studies, detection of other chemical products at sea using remote sensing has been little studied and is still an open subject of research. To address this knowledge gap, an experiment was conducted in May 2015 over the Mediterranean Sea during which controlled releases of hazardous and noxious substances were imaged by an airborne SAR sensor at X- and L-band simultaneously. In this paper we discuss the experimental procedure and report the main results from the airborne radar imaging campaign.

Analysis of water-in-oil emulsion hyperspectral signature: contribution of pool experiment

Going on toward the objectives of NAOMI (New Advanced Observation Method Integration) research project, Total and ONERA are working on hyperspectral imagery to detect, characterize and quantify spills at sea. An important part of this work consists in building a database of oil and water-in-oil emulsion reflectance. This database of spectral signatures will be used to analyze the properties of a slick thanks to hyperspectral imagery in the VNIR+SWIR domain and spectral matching techniques. The characterization of the hydrocarbons performed first in laboratory has been completed with a pool experiment. The aim of such an experiment is to measure more realistic spectral signatures in term of background and thickness than in laboratory. Starting from the sample of the emulsion released at sea during NOFO 2015 experiment, emulsion has been remixed once for laboratory measurements and second for the pool experiment. Indeed, its reflectance was measured in the laboratory but for a quite large thickness and it was difficult to predict how the thickness would be once the emulsion freely spread at the water surface. Moreover, depending on the thickness, a signature mixing emulsion and water background could be obtained. In such case, the signatures measured in the lab and in the pool may differ significantly. As a consequence, the use of spectral signature measured in laboratory may give poor spectral matching results. In order to get the answers, a pool experiment, piloted by ONERA in the frame of the NAOMI collaboration with TOTAL, was organized at CEDRE in Brest (France). CEDRE’s pool is usually used for oil recovery equipment testing or people operating such equipment training. Thus, the pool is large (1900 m²), fairly deep (3 m) and filled with ocean water. Known volumes of several products, including the NOFO 2015 emulsion, were successively poured into a delimited area within the pool. Two hyperspectral cameras put on board a cherry picker located on the pool quay were lifted at about 15 m above the delimited area in order to take images of each small spill. The obtained spectral signatures have been compared with the laboratory ones. Detection algorithms have been applied to the pool hypercubes in order to identify the pixels covered by the NOFO 2015 emulsion and a thickness assessment has been performed. A wide characterization of the NOFO2015 emulsion has been done thanks to laboratory measurements, in pool experiment and airborne images from the NOFO campaign in 2015. The paper will present the pool experiment and the corresponding image processing. A quick recall of the laboratory measurements will be done before presenting the pool and laboratory spectral signatures comparison. Then the spectral signatures will be compared with data from an airborne image of the 2015 NOFO campaign. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn concerning the information that can be extracted from hyperspectral airborne imagery for such kind of emulsion and more generally.

Introduction to oil quantification on sea surface from microwaves polarimetric SAR measurements

This paper aims at presenting a methodology for the absolute quantification of oil/water mixing from microwaves polarimetric SAR measurements. In this approach, the effective relative complex permittivity of observed surface is a key parameter for a quantitative estimation of the oil/water mixing. The scope of application of the method goes far beyond the sole quantification of the mixing and provides further understanding of some electromagnetic scattering processes at the sea surface.

Multifrequency radar imagery and characterization of hazardous and noxious substances at sea

Maritime pollution by chemical products occurs at much lower frequency than spills of oil, however the consequences of a chemical spill can be more wide-reaching than those of oil. While detection and characterization of hydrocarbons have been the subject of numerous studies, detection of other chemical products at sea using remote sensing has been little studied and is still an open subject of research. To address this knowledge gap, an experiment was conducted in May 2015 over the Mediterranean Sea during which controlled releases of hazardous and noxious substances were imaged by an airborne SAR sensor at X- and L-band simultaneously. In this paper we discuss the experimental procedure and report the main results from the airborne radar imaging campaign.