Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
delivered in October and the total amount of detected (with high con-
fidence) oil spills was 80.
2.4 The Black Sea
Concerning the Black Sea, JRC produced the maps of oil spills for the
years 2000, 2001 and 2002. In 2000, 800 images were analysed and 205
spills were detected. In 2001, 700 images were analysed and 122 spills
were detected. In 2002, 500 images were analysed and 139 spills were de-
tected.
It is difficult to infer a possible trend of the prevalence of oil spills after
an analysis period of three years only, each with a different number of im-
ages. As a first relevant parameter, we can say that approximately on aver-
age it was possible to detect an oil spill: in 2000 every 4 images, in 2001
every 6 and in 2002 every 3.5 images. The analysis of the images of the
Black Sea revealed an evident concentration of oil spills along the main
maritime routes: Odessa - Istanbul and Novorossiysk - Istanbul. Moreover
a concentration of oil spills was detected in the area north of the Bosphorus
Strait.
2.5 The Baltic Sea
The results obtained analysing 1300 images for the year 2000 of the Baltic
Sea are unsatisfactory. In fact only 100 oil spills were detected. This num-
ber of oil spills seems too low compared with data obtained from aerial
surveillance in the framework of the Helsinki Convention (see ref.
HELCOM). In particular, in the year 2000, 476 oil spills were detected by
aerial surveillance (4809 flight hours). In the following years, the number
of spills detected by aerial surveillance shows a positive decrease, 389 in
2001, 344 in 2002, 292 in 2003.
One of the possible explanations, of the result of the analysis of the Bal-
tic Sea images is related to the type of images used. As mentioned above
the study was developed using un-calibrated low-resolution images and
probably this type of images is not appropriate to detect oil spills in the
Baltic region. In particular, we have to remind that the Baltic Sea has par-
ticular weather condition (in particular, icy waters in the northern part)
during a long part of the year and low resolution images could not be the
best tool to detect oil spills under these conditions.
