Tactical Airborne Oil Spill Remote Sensing: Poseidon, A New Operational Approach

Abstract The extensive oil and gas infrastructure system and port systems in the Gulf of Mexico are crucial not only to the Texas economy but also the United States’ economy, with both environmental and national security impacts. The coastal gulf states are particularly exposed to pollution from either accidental or illegal discharge. Both recent natural events and accidents have highlighted the urgency of ensuring the best available technology is available to mitigate the risk from hydrocarbon pollution. Within this context airborne remote sensing is becoming a foundation of the overall strategy to improve the ability to plan and position response resources in the optimal areas to respond to spills. Having the right information at the right time optimizes dramatically the use of all the response resources. And assess the effectiveness of the response and make an accurate natural resources damage assessment is critical and requires as well quantitative and timely information. In the past the main effort has been directed towards developing airborne sensors with enhanced spill monitoring capability. Recently, more and more attention has been paid to the operational approach and to the automated processing of oil spill data acquired by integrated airborne sensor platforms. The most relevant features for an effective airborne remote sensing platforms are: multi-sensors system for complementarity and redundancy of information; capability to classify oil targets as Recoverable or Non-recoverable; capability to georeference the targets and track moving oil; real time relay of immediately usable information - for tactical and strategic use; data suitable to support the Common Operating Picture; ability to expand the operating window to low-light conditions. This paper focuses on advanced data processing and presents ways of improving the usability of airborne multi-sensor oil spill monitoring systems. In this context, is given an overview of currently existing oil spill remote sensing technology like infrared/ultraviolet line scanners, microwave radiometers, laser fluorosensors and radar system. The paper presents Poseidon, a new airborne system for network-based real-time data acquisition, analysis and fusion of multi-sensor data. Also, a method for the distribution of oil spill data and related data products using web-based geographical information systems is described; automated generation of thematic maps of the oil spill scene along with their real-time web-based distribution is becoming more important in marine incident management.