The Costa Concordia last cruise: The first application of high frequency monitoring based on COSMO-SkyMed constellation for wreck removal

AbstractThe Italian vessel Costa Concordia wrecked on January 13th 2012 offshore the Giglio Island (Tuscany, Italy), with the loss of 32 lives. Salvage operation of the vessel started immediately after the wreck. This operation was the largest and most expensive maritime salvage ever attempted on a wrecked ship and it ended in July 2014 when the Costa Concordia was removed from the Giglio Island, and dragged in the port of Genoa where it was dismantled. The refloating and removal phases of the Costa Concordia were monitored, in the period between 14th and 27th of July, exploiting SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) images acquired by the X-band COSMO-SkyMed satellite constellation in crisis mode. The main targets of the monitoring system were: (i) the detection of possible spill of pollutant material from the vessel and (ii) to exclude that oil slicks, illegally produced by other vessels, could be improperly linked to the naval convoy during its transit along the route between the Giglio Island and the port of Genoa. Results point out that the adopted monitoring system, through the use of the COSMO-SkyMed constellation, can be profitably employed to monitor emergency phases related to single ship or naval convoy over wide areas and with a suitable temporal coverage. Furthermore, the refloating and removal phases of the Costa Concordia were a success because no pollution was produced during the operations

Selected Papers from the 2018 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea

This Special Issue is devoted to recent developments in instrumentation and measurement techniques applied to the marine field. ¶The sea is the medium that has allowed people to travel from one continent to another using vessels, even today despite the use of aircraft. It has also been acting as a great reservoir and source of food for all living beings. However, for many generations, it served as a landfill for depositing conventional and nuclear wastes, especially in its deep seabeds, and we are assisting in a race to exploit minerals and resources, different from foods, encompassed in it. Its health is a great challenge for the survival of all humanity since it is one of the most important environmental components targeted by global warming. ¶ As everyone may know, measuring is a step that generates substantial knowledge about a phenomenon or an asset, which is the basis for proposing correct solutions and making proper decisions. However, measurements in the sea environment pose unique difficulties and opportunities, which is made clear from the research results presented in this Special Issue

Offshore oil spill detection using synthetic aperture radar

Among the different types of marine pollution, oil spill has been considered as a major threat to the sea ecosystems. The source of the oil pollution can be located on the mainland or directly at sea. The sources of oil pollution at sea are discharges coming from ships, offshore platforms or natural seepage from sea bed. Oil pollution from sea-based sources can be accidental or deliberate. Different sensors to detect and monitor oil spills could be onboard vessels, aircraft, or satellites. Vessels equipped with specialised radars, can detect oil at sea but they can cover a very limited area. One of the established ways to monitor sea-based oil pollution is the use of satellites equipped with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to identify optimum set of feature extracted parameters and implement methods at various stages for oil spill detection from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery. More than 200 images of ERS-2, ENVSAT and RADARSAT 2 SAR sensor have been used to assess proposed feature vector for oil spill detection methodology, which involves three stages: segmentation for dark spot detection, feature extraction and classification of feature vector. Unfortunately oil spill is not only the phenomenon that can create a dark spot in SAR imagery. There are several others meteorological and oceanographic and wind induced phenomena which may lead to a dark spot in SAR imagery. Therefore, these dark objects also appear similar to the dark spot due to oil spill and are called as look-alikes. These look-alikes thus cause difficulty in detecting oil spill spots as their primary characteristic similar to oil spill spots. To get over this difficulty, feature extraction becomes important; a stage which may involve selection of appropriate feature extraction parameters. The main objective of this dissertation is to identify the optimum feature vector in order to segregate oil spill and ‘look-alike’ spots. A total of 44 Feature extracted parameters have been studied. For segmentation, four methods; based on edge detection, adaptive theresholding, artificial neural network (ANN) segmentation and the other on contrast split segmentation have been implemented. Spot features are extracted from both the dark spots themselves and their surroundings. Classification stage was performed using two different classification techniques, first one is based on ANN and the other based on a two-stage processing that combines classification tree analysis and fuzzy logic. A modified feature vector, including both new and improved features, is suggested for better description of different types of dark spots. An ANN classifier using full spectrum of feature parameters has also been developed and evaluated. The implemented methodology appears promising in detecting dark spots and discriminating oil spills from look-alikes and processing time is well below any operational service requirements

Europe's Space capabilities for the benefit of the Arctic

In recent years, the Arctic region has acquired an increasing environmental, social, economic and strategic importance. The Arctic’s fragile environment is both a direct and key indicator of the climate change and requires specific mitigation and adaptation actions. The EU has a clear strategic interest in playing a key role and is actively responding to the impacts of climate change safeguarding the Arctic’s fragile ecosystem, ensuring a sustainable development, particularly in the European part of the Arctic. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has recently completed a study aimed at identifying the capabilities and relevant synergies across the four domains of the EU Space Programme: earth observation, satellite navigation, satellite communications, and space situational awareness (SSA). These synergies are expected to be key enablers of new services that will have a high societal impact in the region, which could be developed in a more cost-efficient and rapid manner. Similarly, synergies will also help exploit to its full extent operational services that are already deployed in the Arctic (e.g., the Copernicus emergency service or the Galileo Search and rescue service could greatly benefit from improved satellite communications connectivity in the region).JRC.E.2-Technology Innovation in Securit

Microwave satellite remote sensing for a sustainable sea

The oceans cover roughly 2/3 of the Earth’s surface and are a fundamental ecosystem regulating climate, weather and representing a huge reservoir of biodiversity and natural resources. The preservation of the oceans is therefore not only relevant on an environmental perspective but also on an economical one. A sustainable approach is requested that cannot be simply achieved by improving technologies but calls for a shared new vision of common goods.Within such a complex and holistic problem, the role of satellite microwave remote sensing to observe marine ecosystem and to assist a sustainable development of human activities must be considered. In such a view the paper is meant. Accordingly, the key microwave sensor technologies are reviewed paying particular emphasis on those applications that can provide effective support to pursue some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Three meaningful sectors are showcased:oil and gas, where microwave sensors can provide continuous fine-resolution monitoring of critical infrastructures; renewable energy, where microwave satellite remote sensing allows supporting the management of offshore wind farms during both feasibility and operational stages; plastic pollution, where microwave technologies that exploit signals of opportunity offer large-scale monitoring capability to provide marine litter maps of the oceans

Remote Sensing of the Oceans

This book covers different topics in the framework of remote sensing of the oceans. Latest research advancements and brand-new studies are presented that address the exploitation of remote sensing instruments and simulation tools to improve the understanding of ocean processes and enable cutting-edge applications with the aim of preserving the ocean environment and supporting the blue economy. Hence, this book provides a reference framework for state-of-the-art remote sensing methods that deal with the generation of added-value products and the geophysical information retrieval in related fields, including: Oil spill detection and discrimination; Analysis of tropical cyclones and sea echoes; Shoreline and aquaculture area extraction; Monitoring coastal marine litter and moving vessels; Processing of SAR, HF radar and UAV measurements

Improving the RST-OIL algorithm for oil spill detection under severe sun glint conditions

In recent years, the risk related to oil spill accidents has significantly increased due to a global growth in offshore extraction and oil maritime transport. To ensure sea safety, the implementation of a monitoring system able to provide real-time coverage of large areas and a timely alarm in case of accidents is of major importance. Satellite remote sensing, thanks to its inherent peculiarities, has become an essential component in such a system. Recently, the general Robust Satellite Technique (RST) approach has been successfully applied to oil spill detection (RST-OIL) using optical band satellite data. In this paper, an advanced configuration of RST-OIL is presented, and we aim to extend its applicability to a larger set of observation conditions, referring, in particular, to those in the presence of severe sun glint effects that generate some detection limits to the RST-OIL standard algorithm. To test such a configuration, the DeepWater Horizon platform accident from April 2010 was selected as a test case. We analyzed a time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images that are usually significantly affected by sun glint in the Gulf of Mexico area. The accuracy of the achieved results was evaluated for comparison with a well-established satellite methodology based on microwave data, which confirms the potential of the proposed approach in identifying the oil presence on the scene with good accuracy and reliability, even in these severe conditions

Earth Observation in the EMMENA Region: Scoping Review of Current Applications and Knowledge Gaps

Earth observation (EO) techniques have significantly evolved over time, covering a wide range of applications in different domains. The scope of this study is to review the research conducted on EO in the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa (EMMENA) region and to identify the main knowledge gaps. We searched through the Web of Science database for papers published between 2018 and 2022 for EO studies in the EMMENA. We categorized the papers in the following thematic areas: atmosphere, water, agriculture, land, disaster risk reduction (DRR), cultural heritage, energy, marine safety and security (MSS), and big Earth data (BED); 6647 papers were found with the highest number of publications in the thematic areas of BED (27%) and land (22%). Most of the EMMENA countries are surrounded by sea, yet there was a very small number of studies on MSS (0.9% of total number of papers). This study detected a gap in fundamental research in the BED thematic area. Other future needs identified by this study are the limited availability of very high-resolution and near-real-time remote sensing data, the lack of harmonized methodologies and the need for further development of models, algorithms, early warning systems, and services

GROUND DEFORMATION ANALYSIS IN APENNINE AREAS, SEISMICALLY ACTIVE OR ASEISMIC, USING DATA FROM SAR INTERFEROMETRY AND INTEGRATION OF GEOMORPHOLOGICAL AND STRUCTURAL DATA

The core of the study herein has been the analysis of PS-InSAR datasets aimed at providing new constraints to the active tectonics framework, and seismotectonics, of several regions of the Apennines. The analysed Permanent Scatterers datasets result from processing of large amounts of temporally continuous series of radar images acquired with the ERS (1992-2000), ENVISAT (2003-2010) and COSMO SKYMED (2011-2014) satellite missions. Such datasets, which are available in the cartographic website (Geoportale Nazionale) of the Italian Ministry of Environment (MATTM) have been collected through time by the MATTM in the frame of the "Extraordinary Remote Sensing Plan" (Piano Straordinario di Telerilevamento Ambientale, PST-A, law n. 179/2002 - article 27), with the aim of supporting local administrations in the field of environmental policies. The database was realized through three phases: the first one (2008-2009), which involved the interferometric processing of SAR images acquired throughout the country by the ERS1/ERS2 and ENVISAT satellites in both ascending and descending orbits, from 1992 to 2008; the second one (2010-2011) integrated the existing database with the processing of the SAR images acquired by the ENVISAT satellite from 2008 to 2010; the third phase (2013-2015) provided an upgrading and updating of the previously developed database on critical areas, based on StripMap H image acquired with a 16-day recurrence, either in ascending or descending orbit, using the Italian national satellite system, the COSMO SKYMED. With this study, a massive use of Permanent Scatterer datasets is applied for the first time at assessment of ground deformation of large (hundreds of km2 wide) regions of Italy over the last decades, in order to unravelling their current tectonic behaviour. To date in the field of tectonics – in particular, of earthquake geology - the SAR images have been used essentially through the DinSAR technique (comparison between two images, acquired pre- and post-event) in order to constrain the co- and post-seismic deformation (Massonet et al., 1993; Peltzer et al., 1996, 1998; Stramondo et al., 1999; Atzori et al., 2009; Copley and Reynolds, 2014), while the approach that has been used in the case studies that are the object of the research herein is based on analyses of data that (with the exception of the Lunigiana case study) cover an about 20-year long time window. The opportunity of analysing so long, continuous SAR records has allowed detection of both coseismic displacement of moderate earthquakes (i.e., the M 6.3 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, and the M 5 2013 Lunigiana earthquake), and subdued ground displacements - and acceleration – on time scale ranging from yearly to decades. The specific approach used in this study rests on a combination of various techniques of analysis and processing of the PS datasets. In general, as the analyses that have been carried out aimed at identifying motion values with wide areal extent, a statistical filtering has been applied to PSs velocity values in order to discard from the initial, “native”, dataset fast-moving PSs that may be associated with the occurrence of local-scale phenomena (e.g., landslides, sediment compaction, water extraction, etc.). Furthermore, an in depth inspection of time series of PSs from all of the investigated areas has been carried out with the aim of identifying changing (LoS-oriented) motion trends over the analysed time windows. A distinctive feature of this study was the estimation of vertical ground displacements. In fact, while most studies on ground deformation are based on analysis of SAR data recorded along either ascending or descending satellite orbits (thus based on LoS-oriented motions), a specific focus of this study was to obtain - starting from LoS-oriented PS velocity values - displacement values in the vertical plane oriented west-east. In order to evaluate vertical displacements, a geometrical relationship was applied to ascending - descending PSs pairs. As PS from ascending and descending tracks are neither spatially coincident nor synchronous, each image pair was obtained by selecting ascending-descending radar images with a time separation within one month. In the L’Aquila region case study, the combination of data recorded along both the ascending and descending satellite orbits has been crucial to the identification of pre-seismic ground motions, undetected in previous works that – similarly – had addressed assessment of possible pre-seismic satellite-recorded signals. In the various case studies, different kinds of GIS-aided geostatistical analyses were used to extract and synthesise information on ground deformation through the construction of both raster maps of displacement values for the ascending and descending LoS, respectively, and maps of the vertical (z, up - down) component of the “real” displacement vector. In the Campania plain case study, the PS-InSAR data analysis and processing have been integrated by detail scale geomorphological-stratigraphical analysis. Results of analyses of the two independent data sets are consistent, and point to tectonically-controlled ground displacements in a large part of the northern part of the study area (Volturno plain) during the 1992-2010 analysed time span. In particular, the integrated data sets show that the boundaries of the area affected by current subsidence follow fault scarps formed in the 39 ka old Campania Ignimbrite, while the horst blocks of such faults are substantially stable (or slightly uplifting) during the analysed time window. Furthermore, mean rates of current subsidence and long-term (Late Pleistocene to present) mean subsidence rates are comparable, pointing to current vertical displacement assessed through the PS-InSAR data analysis as the expression of the recent tectonics of the analysed sectors of the Campania plain. The Campania plain substantially lacks strong historical seismicity. Such evidence suggests that the detected surface displacements result at least in part from aseismic fault activity. The Monte Marzano case study has allowed assessment of subdued deformation along both the major structures that were activated with the Irpinia 1980 earthquake, i.e. the NE-dipping Monte Marzano fault and the SW-dipping Conza fault, respectively. Ground deformation associated with such structures appears decreasing from the time window covered by the ERS satellites (1992-2000) to that covered by the ENVISAT (2003-2010). These data suggest that post-seismic slip of the M 6.9 has continued until 20 years after the main shock to become very weak in the following ten years. Furthermore, the PS-InSAR data analysis has shown that wide areas located between the Monte Marzano and Conza faults (i.e., in the one that is recognised as the graben structure bounded by those structures) show uplift in the range of 0-2 mm/yr, more evident in the period surveyed by the ERS satellites (1992-2000) and less evident in the 2003-2010 time span (ENVISAT). Such uplift might be related to the occurrence, at depth, of a fluid reservoir that has been independently identified by seismic tomography (Amoroso et al., 2014). In depth analysis of pre-seismic periods have been carried out in three study areas, i.e. those of the 1997 Colfiorito earthquake, of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake and of the 2013 Lunigiana earthquake. The Colfiorito case study has not provided any significant information on possible pre-seismic ground deformation, most probably due to the PS spatial distribution in that region too much discontinuous to allow identification of both net signals from inspection of the rare and sparse PS time series, and statistically meaningful surface displacement patterns. Both in the L’Aquila and Lunigiana case studies, ground deformation signals in the pre-seismic period have been detected from inspection of PS time series. Pre-seismic ground deformation signals detected in the Lunigiana area (which was affected by a strike-slip faulting earthquake; Eva et al., 2014, Pezzo et al., 2014, Stramondo et al., 2014) are questionable, as they are quite complex and difficult to be interpreted and framed within the local tectonic scenario. Conversely, very clear and net pre-seismic signals have been identified in the region hit by the L’Aquila normal faulting earthquake. There, in the time span predating of some four years the 6th April 2009 main shock, ground deformation with distinct spatial patterns, and orientations, have been detected. In particular, the PS-InSAR analysis has shown that the hanging wall block of the Paganica fault (the surface expression of the structure activated with the main shock; e.g., Galli et al., 2010) has been subject to slow uplift and eastward horizontal motion from 2005 to September/October 2008, and then (October 2008-March 2009) subject to subsidence and westward oriented horizontal motion. Following coseismic collapse, in the early post-seismic period (April-May 2009), subsidence extended eastwards beyond the Paganica fault trace. The region affected by opposite pre-seismic motions covers the area in which the 6th April main shock and most of both foreshocks and aftershocks (Valoroso et al., 2013) were recorded, while the inversion of the pre-seismic displacements is coeval with onset of the foreshocks (October 2008; Di Luccio et al., 2010). In addition, such a region includes both topographic highs and lows. All of such features point to a correlation of the detected motions with the seismic phenomena, and suggest a deep-seated causative mechanism, such as volume changes in response to vertical/lateral fluids migration and fracturing processes at depth, with all phenomena having been documented in connection with the 2009 earthquake in the study region (e.g., Di Luccio et al., 2010; Lucente et al., 2010; Moro et al., 2017). Pre-seismic ground deformation that has been detected in the L’Aquila region could represent a precursor signal of the 2009, M 6.3 earthquake. Such a hypothesis should be tested, in the future, through the continuous monitoring through SAR satellites, but also high-resolution geodetic techniques, of seismically active regions worldwide aimed at detecting the possible occurrence of pre-seismic signals. However, the results of this study point to the long-term (yearly scale) PS-InSAR technique as a tool crucial to the detection of ground deformation in areas struck by recent earthquakes, and to monitoring active – possibly aseismic - structures. Such knowledge may strongly support strategies addressed at territorial planning and mitigation of seismic hazard, and represent an important sustenance for actions ruled by Civil Protection. On the other hand, the results of this study highlight the importance of the existing PS database, and the importance of continuing implementing such an instrument in the future

Remote Sensing for Natural or Man-made Disasters and Environmental Changes

Disasters can cause drastic environmental changes. A large amount of spatial data is required for managing the disasters and to assess their environmental impacts. Earth observation data offers independent coverage of wide areas for a broad spectrum of crisis situations. It provides information over large areas in near-real-time interval and supplementary at short-time and long-time intervals. Therefore, remote sensing can support disaster management in various applications. In order to demonstrate not only the efficiency but also the limitations of remote sensing technologies for disaster management, a number of case studies are presented, including applications for flooding in Germany 2013, earthquake in Nepal 2015, forest fires in Russia 2015, and searching for the Malaysian aircraft 2014. The discussed aspects comprise data access, information extraction and analysis, management of data and its integration with other data sources, product design, and organisational aspects