Oil Detection in a Coastal Marsh with Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
1
National Wetlands Research Center, US Geological Survey, 700 Cajundome Blvd., Lafayette, LA 70506, USA
2
IAP World Services, Inc., Cape Canaveral, FL 32920, USA
3
ASci Corp., Inc., McLean, VA 22101, USA
4
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Current Affiliation: Five Rivers Services, LLC, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA
Remote Sens. 2011, 3(12), 2630-2662; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs3122630
Received: 19 October 2011 / Revised: 30 November 2011 / Accepted: 5 December 2011 / Published: 7 December 2011
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in Coastal Ecosystem)
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s airborne Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) was deployed in June 2010 in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. UAVSAR is a fully polarimetric L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensor for obtaining data at high spatial resolutions. Starting a month prior to the UAVSAR collections, visual observations confirmed oil impacts along shorelines within northeastern Barataria Bay waters in eastern coastal Louisiana. UAVSAR data along several flight lines over Barataria Bay were collected on 23 June 2010, including the repeat flight line for which data were collected in June 2009. Our analysis of calibrated single-look complex data for these flight lines shows that structural damage of shoreline marsh accompanied by oil occurrence manifested as anomalous features not evident in pre-spill data. Freeman-Durden (FD) and Cloude-Pottier (CP) decompositions of the polarimetric data and Wishart classifications seeded with the FD and CP classes also highlighted these nearshore features as a change in dominant scattering mechanism. All decompositions and classifications also identify a class of interior marshes that reproduce the spatially extensive changes in backscatter indicated by the pre- and post-spill comparison of multi-polarization radar backscatter data. FD and CP decompositions reveal that those changes indicate a transform of dominant scatter from primarily surface or volumetric to double or even bounce. Given supportive evidence that oil-polluted waters penetrated into the interior marshes, it is reasonable that these backscatter changes correspond with oil exposure; however, multiple factors prevent unambiguous determination of whether UAVSAR detected oil in interior marshes.
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Keywords:
Gulf of Mexico; Deepwater Horizon oil spill; PolSAR and multi-polarization radar data; decomposition classification; coastal marsh; polarimetric signature analysis
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MDPI and ACS Style
Ramsey III, E.; Rangoonwala, A.; Suzuoki, Y.; Jones, C.E. Oil Detection in a Coastal Marsh with Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 2630-2662. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs3122630
AMA Style
Ramsey III E, Rangoonwala A, Suzuoki Y, Jones CE. Oil Detection in a Coastal Marsh with Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Remote Sensing. 2011; 3(12):2630-2662. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs3122630
Chicago/Turabian StyleRamsey III, Elijah; Rangoonwala, Amina; Suzuoki, Yukihiro; Jones, Cathleen E. 2011. "Oil Detection in a Coastal Marsh with Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)" Remote Sens. 3, no. 12: 2630-2662. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs3122630
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