The Necessity of Applying Sar Imagery to Oil Spill Modeling in Cases of Data Obfuscation

Abstract

Oil spill monitoring is all the more important during circumstances that prevent immediate action, such as the recent crisis in Lebanon during the Israel-Lebanon war. Conditions of war prevented the acquisition of routine and necessary information, such as: the precise quantity of oil lost to the sea, the rate and duration of escape flow (in this case initial reports were that the oil was ‘spilled’ during two separate events, yet subsequent images suggested continuous flow over a period of at least two weeks), the type of oil, precise locations, and shore characteristics. Accurate simulation of the Lebanon slick was possible only by using SAR imagery which, for one instance, demonstrated that the behavior of the slick ran counter to expectations informed by knowledge of winds, currents, and waves; that is, though the main mass behaved according to models, running up along the coast was a thin layer of oil spread up to 20 km out to sea, extending northward approximately 200 km. If this event may be of any benefit, it will be that it leads to the improvement of the applicable models by considering what has been learned by running our models for an extended period over a vast area in these particular circumstances.