Solubility Data Symposia AMP Links of Interest Search the Site Home Page Pure Appl. Remote sensing is useful in several modes of oil spill control, including large area surveillance, site specific monitoring and tactical assistance in emergencies. Remote sensing is able to provide essential information to enhance strategic and tactical decision-making, potentially reducing incidence of spills by providing a deterrent factor, decreasing response costs by facilitating rapid oil recovery and ultimately minimising impact. Marine oil spills can be separated into two categories of relevance to the type of remote sensing technology which might be used to detect and respond to the incident. While these non-accidental discharges tend to be small in themselves, they are frequent and contribute much more to the overall introduction of oil to the marine environment than accidental spills, and are of increasing international regulatory concern.
Accidental spills are much less frequent, but typically involves much larger releases of oil.
Such oil spills are high profile events for which rapid and effective emergency response is needed to contain and recover the spilled oil. In many countries, an appropriate and effective response capability is required by law, such as demanded by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 in the US, as well as by recent amendments to the Canada Shipping Act in Canada. There is a growing recognition that using remote sensing, especially airborne, to aid cleanup response efforts can mitigate the effects of oil on the environment, as well as reduce cleanup costs. Airborne remote sensing sensing in the support of spill response operations has a mixed level of interest by spill responders when viewed globally. In the US, for instance, airborne remote has had varying degrees of success in meeting operational expectations, and thus is not yet fully integrated into national, regional and area response plans and operations.