Oil Spill Detection Analyzing “Sentinel 2“ Satellite Images: A Persian Gulf Case Study

Oil spills near exploitation areas and oil loading ports are often related to the ambitions of governments to get more oil market share and the negligence at the time of the loading in large tankers or ships. The present study investigates one oil spill event using multi sensor satellite images in the Al Khafji (between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) zone. Oil slicks have been characterized with multi sensor satellite images over the Persian Gulf and then analyzed in order to detect and classify oil spills in this zone. In particular this paper discusses oil pollution detection in the Persian Gulf by using multi sensor satellite images data. Oil spill images have been selected by using Sentinel 2 images pinpointing oil spill zones. ENVI software for analysing satellite images and ADIOS (Automated Data Inquiry for Oil Spills) for oil weathering modelling have been used. The obtained results in Al Khafji zone show that the oil spill moves towards the coastline firstly increasing its surface and then decreasing it until reaching the coastline.