Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Spanish authorities, activated the CHARTER (see ref. CHARTER; Inter-
national Charter Space and Major Disasters) on November 14
th
, 2002. The
authorised users while the CHARTER was active were the Spanish Autho-
rities (Fomento Ministry), the French Navy, Le Cedre (France), and the EC
JRC. The CHARTER was closed on 3 December 2002, two weeks after its
activation.
On behalf of the Directorate General Environment (DG ENV), the Joint
Research Centre provided support to the interpretation of radar satellite
images over the areas affected by the Prestige Tanker accident (Atlantic
Coast of Galicia, Cantabrian Coast and the Bay of Biscay). In support of
the operational phase, the following working scheme was adopted:
Provision of radar images through the Charter (first phase, in the period
14/11/2002 to 5/12/2002) and then directly from the European Space
Agency (second phase, in the period 6/12/2002 to 5/3/2003).
Interpretation of images by the JRC and delivery of relevant information
to DG-ENV;
Distribution of the interpreted images by DG-ENV, as annex to
Infosheets on the Prestige accident, to all Member States.
The activity concerning the satellite image processing and interpretation
in support to the management of the emergency phase consisted of the fol-
lowing tasks:
Image geo-location (i.e., transforming the image from a radar internal
reference system to a geographical one (lat-long));
Image equalisation to correct for the incidence angle dependence of the
sea surface radar backscatter;
Image segmentation to identify dark features.
Image interpretation identifying possible oil spill signatures.
The final product was a geo-located radar image with the indication of
likely spilled areas (Figure 2), for each of which a level of confidence
(low-medium-high) was also provided. When possible, in order to ease the
image interpretation, suitable geographical reference points (e.g., towns or
other clearly recognizable geographical features) were also indicated. Out
of the 169 images provided to JRC about 30 were identified as being of in-
terest (a possible oil spill signature was present with at least a low level of
confidence) and then delivered to DG-ENV. On average the time delay
from the image acquisition to the delivery of the final results to DG-ENV
was about 9 hours. In practice, the bottleneck in this process was the deli-
very of the images by the image provider. It must be noted that a great
number of the images were acquired be the ESA ENVISAT satellite,
which was in its commissioning phase and the image delivery scheme was
not yet fully operational. Consequently, it can be concluded that the overall
efficiency was quite good.
