**7. Current operational efforts in oil spill monitoring**

The use of satellite imagery for regular oil spill monitoring worldwide is increasing. Pedersen et al. [65] describe the Canadian oil spill monitoring efforts. They currently acquire and analyze 5000 SAR images over Canadian waters annually. From 2006 to 2007, 360 images were analyzed, 12 anomalies were detected, and three of them were verified. An overview of long-term oil spill monitoring efforts in Europe is described. The Baltic Sea is an area where oil spill monitoring has been performed for many years already. Oil spill statistics are computed annually. According to the number of detected and verified oil spills correlates well with the shipping density. The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) is responsible for providing vessel traffic monitoring services to the European Union Member States. EMSA manages maritime shipping systems: SafeSeaNet, CleanSeaNet, and LRIT. SafeSeaNet is a ship, vessel monitoring system based on AIS and LRIT track vessels outside the range of AIS coastal networks [66]. Thus, the CleanSeaNet offers near-real-time oil-spill detection from [67].

The EMSA CleanSeaNet satellite monitoring service provides annual statistics of potential oil slicks. In 2008, 3196 potential slicks were reported, while this was reduced to 2107 in 2009 and 1981 in 2010. In 2009, 751 of the reported slicks were checked by the national authorities and 194 verified (for verifying oil spills weekly) [68]. Although it is impossible to quantify the exact volume of oil involved in these spills, it is believed that deliberate discharges account for a progressively greater proportion of pollution than the accidental events. CleanSeaNet uses SAR images from ENVISAT, RADARSAT-1, and RADARSAT-2. The service is supposed to be extended [69], to include optical images (MODIS Aqua) in 2011. Operators assess the SAR images together with meteorological, oceanographic, and ancillary information to detect the presence of oil on the sea surface. Detection results are reported to the affected country less than 30 min after satellite image acquisition.

In case of a major accidental spill, European Union Member States and/or the European Commission will normally activate the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters [68]. EMSA can assist in analyzing satellite imagery to help coordinate *Computational Techniques of Oil Spill Detection in Synthetic Aperture Radar Data: Review Cases DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108115*

**Figure 1.** *This is an example of discharging oil from the ship.*

**Figure 2.** *The Texas City accident on U.S. coast in March 22nd, 2014 © Houston Ship Channel.*

and order all possible satellite imageries to continuously monitor the evolution of an accidental spill as well as to assist in applying forecasting computer models (**Figure 1**).

In the current operational scenario based on monitoring, the pollution control phenomena as aircraft and ship surveillance under the traditional techniques have many drawbacks: time delay, weather conditions, airborne surveillance, and SAR data evidence rules. These drawbacks are frequently reported by oil spills and their detection capabilities very low of the remote sensing monitoring. The Side-Looking Airborne Radar (SLAR) aircrafts observing is to detect pollution under different conditions about the wider areas of the coastal region surface [70]. However, the National Pollution Control Authorities Center for environmental protection detects the spoils from the oil spill damages: early warning, legal prosecution, and provision of pollution statistics (**Figure 2**).
