Remote Sensing of Oil Spills for Marine Life and Environmental Preservation

Dear Colleagues,

Pollution of the sea surface is a serious threat for marine life and for the ecological state of the open ocean, coastal zones, and inland waters. The remote sensing of marine films, both oil spills and biogenic pollutions, aiming to identify the films and to quantify their characteristics is a very important problem in the context of marine environment safety. The problem is actively discussed in the literature, but is still far from its comprehensive solution.

Films on the sea surface result in enhanced attenuation of short wind waves and the formation of slicks (areas of flattened sea surface). Marine film slicks can be manifested in the signals of microwave and optical systems due to various physical mechanisms. Film slicks in optical images under natural illumination conditions appear as dark or bright areas depending on the sky brightness distribution and the geometry of observations. Microwave radar signatures of slicks are basically dark and determined mostly by the effect of suppression of short wind waves due to the film. The radar backscatter contrast of film slicks depends on radar wavelength, incidence angle, and polarization. Films can also be detected in IR or UV images because of their effect on water temperature, fluorescence spectra, etc. Slick signatures in different electromagnetic wavelength ranges depend dramatically on the physical/chemical characteristics of films, including film thickness, and on meteorological conditions.

Note that the remote sensing and characterization of marine film slicks is an intricate problem not only because of the complicated mechanisms of film signature formation, but also because of the existence of “look-alikes”. The latter are the areas of variable sea surface roughness which often look like slicks but are related to different oceanic/atmospheric processes in the absence of a film. Investigations of the problem of film slicks can improve our understanding of this phenomenon, which will lead to the development of new approaches/methods extending our capabilities of film detection and characterization with remote sensing techniques.

This Special Issue is focused on various aspects of the problem of film slick remote sensing, and the articles may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Microwave and optical, active and passive, remote sensing of oil spills on the sea surface, particularly, satellite methods of film characterization;
• Remote sensing of natural marine films, relation between characteristics of marine films and biological processes in the upper ocean;
• Theoretical aspects of the problem of film slicks;
• Formation of marine film slicks and slick evolution due to small-scale and submesoscale processes such as cyclonic submesoscale vortices, internal waves, etc.;
• Remote sensing of look-alikes of different origin; discrimination between oil and biogenic films and look-alikes.

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• oil spills
• biogenic films
• microwave radar
• optical remote sensing
• marine slicks
• small-scale and submesoscale processes
• slick look-alikes