How to map oil spills from Space?

A big challenge to overcome using hyperspectral technology

Enrol to learn how to use Earth Observation to preserve the marine ecosystem from such threats

This textbook remote sensing online course will guide you to learn how to use hyperspectral and multispectral remote sensing images to:

  1. Map the extent of an oil spill event
  2. Identify the type of oil spilled
  3. Estimate the thickness of the oil spill in order to measure spilled oil volume


To accomplish these, two methodologies are presented presented based on satellite earth observation images. Also experiments using ground spectral measurements are used in order to build a Spectral Library and develop a model for thickness estimation.

This textbook course is ideal for students and professionals either in the EO&GIS domain or in the environmental monitoring domain.


Pricing - Lifetime Access

The power of Spectral Unmixing

In oil spill mapping! While Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) are used operationally to map oil spills, optical remote sensing and especially hyperspectral remote sensing can not only map, but also identify the oil spill type and estimate the spill thickness over it's entire extent!
Enroll now and advance your skills

Course curriculum

  1. 01
  2. 02
  3. 03

    • Lesson 6: Datasets used to evaluate the methodology
  4. 04

    • Lesson 7: On ASTER Imagery (Part 1)

    • Lesson 8: On ASTER Imagery (Part 2)

    • Lesson 9: On MODIS Imagery (Part 1)

    • Lesson 10: On MODIS Imagery (Part 2)

    • Lesson 11: SpecTIR Imagery
  5. 05

    • Lesson 12: Drafting conclusions on the application results

    • Further Reading
  6. 06

    • Lesson 13: Integrated oil spill mapping workflow

    • Lesson 14: Integrated oil spill mapping workflow graph
  7. 07

    • Lesson 15: Why to examine the relative radiometric normalization concept?

      FREE PREVIEW

    • Lesson 16: Introducing the Relative Radiometric Concept (Part 1)

    • Lesson 17: Introducing the Relative Radiometric Concept (Part 2)

    • Lesson 18: Spectral Indices that are used to compare spectrums

    • Lesson 19: The Algorithm: Normalized Proximity and Similarity Methodology (NPSM) [Part 1]

    • Lesson 20: The Algorithm: Normalized Proximity and Similarity Methodology (NPSM) [Part 2]

    • Lesson 21: Data & Experiments to evaluate NPSM

    • Lesson 22: Evaluation Results of NPSM

    • Lesson 23: Evaluation Results of NPSM: Multispectral Images

    • Lesson 24: Evaluation Results of NPSM: Hyperspectral Images

    • Lesson 25: Concluding Remarks for the Relative Radiometric Normalization Process

    • References and Further Reading
  8. 08

    • Lesson 26: Application of the Integrated oil spill mapping workflow

    • Lesson 27: Results of the Integrated oil spill mapping workflow (Multispectral)

    • Lesson 28: Resutls of the Integrated oil spill mapping workflow (Hyperspectral)
  9. 09

    • Lesson 29: Drafting concluding remarks
  10. 10

    • Lesson 30: Introduction to the concept

      FREE PREVIEW

    • Lesson 31: Methodological Approaches [Part 1]

    • Lesson 32: Methodological Approaches [Part 2]

    • Lesson 33: What data we need to approach the problem?

    • Lesson 34: Unmixing methods to estimate the oil spill thickness

    • Lesson 35: Oil Spill thickness estimation [Part 1]

    • Lesson 36: Oil Spill thickness estimation [Part 2]

    • Lesson 37: Concluding Remarks for Oil spill thickness estimation

    • References and Further Reading

What will you learn?

  • Hyperspectral oil spill mapping

  • Relative Radiometric Normalization

  • Oil spill type identification with hyperspectral data

  • Spectral Unmixing

  • Oil spill thickness estimation

  • Spectral Libraries building and updating

Any Prerequisites?

  • Practically none.

GEO Premium

Access our ENTIRE content with a yearly subscription only 8$/month

1 Year Access

Student Profile?

  • Under/post graduate students

  • Professionals and Companies

  • Master students and PhD candidates

  • Researchers and Academics

Some more information

  • Certificates of Completion

    After you successfully finish the course, you can claim your Certificate of Completion with NO extra cost! You can add it to your CV, LinkedIn profile etc

  • Available at any time! Study at your best time

    We know hard it is to acquire new skills. All our courses are self paced.

  • Online and always accessible

    Even when you finish the course and you get your certificate, you will still have access to course contents! Every time an Instructor makes an update you will be notified and be able to watch it for FREE

About your Instructor

I'm a Remote Sensing and a Surveying Engineer. I received my degree from NTUA in 2010, where I also received my Ph.D. in hyperspectral remote sensing in 2016. From graduation in 2010, my career started as a Researcher Associate and Teaching Associate in the Laboratory of Remote Sensing of NTUA. From that time I also worked at several private companies as a Remote Sensing Expert and Geospatial Analyst. From the beginning of 2015 I was positioned as Senior Earth Observation Expert. During these years, I have participated in more than 20 funded European Commission and European Space Agency projects, have over 16 peer reviewed scientific publications in the field of Remote Sensing, and have an international patent in hyperspectral data compression.My main research and professional interests are in the optical remote sensing area, where I specialize in data (images, point measurements) processing and algorithm design and development. Some of the software tools that I operate to accomplish my research and business dreams are SNAP, ENVI, IDL, QGIS, ERDAS Imagine, ArcGIS, and Python. I have been working with these tools since 2008.

Dimitris Sykas

Remote Sensing Expert

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