Artificial oil pollution detection and wave observation in the sea adjacent to Japan by ERS-1 SAR images

In 1991 and 1992 the authors made experiments to detect an artificial oil slick areas and ocean waves by use of the C-band SAR of ERS-1. Artificial slick areas were produced by spilling oleyl alcohol from a small vessel in the Pacific Ocean about 100 km off the coasts of Cape Omaezaki in 1991 and Peninsula Kii in 1992. Sea truth data was gathered from a small vessel. The sea surface conditions were also observed by X-band, VV-polarization real aperture SLAR of CRL synchronously. The SAR images were processed by NASDA. The authors succeeded in clearly finding the artificially polluted areas as dark patches. The damping of the scattered powers was nearly 4 dB for the wind speed condition below 11 m/s