Gulf of Mexico oil spill impact on beach soil: UWB radars-based approach

Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 has generated deep impact on the beach soil. Microwave emission and backscattering of the beach soil depend on its dielectric property which exhibits dispersion and absorption and is affected by the oil, salt, and moisture content. In this paper, we apply Ultra-WideBand (UWB) radars sensor network to perform the beach soil dielectric property studies due to the oil spill. Data were collected from different beaches in New Orleans. Some beaches were contaminated by oil spill; and some beaches were clean. Extensive data were collected on different beaches based on UWB radars. We obtained the soil reflectivity kernel based on the sending chirps and received echoes for soil, and observed that oil spill has reduced the amplitude of reflectivity kernel.