Open Data Science Europe workshop 2022

Due to its strategical geographic situation, Morocco is experiencing a heavy ship traffic. The ships accidents and illegal discharges, commonly called oil spills, are very frequent and present a big harm toward the marine ecosystem. These oil spills are affected by many natural phenomena, which facilitate and accelerate its spreading, making the forecast of the damages extent not very accurate. Therefore, the use of new technologies like satellites is crucial and will significantly help to monitor and assess these oil spills. The present work is based on Sentinel-1 SAR images and aim to take into evidence the extent of the hydrocarbons marine pollution, in a national framing (Moroccan Exclusive Economic Zone). More than 7000 images were examined and up to 100 possible cases were detected and mapped from January 2017 to December 2020. A batch process based on the detection of areas of reduced Normalized Radar Cross Section values, and considering corrections, masks, wind field estimation and oil clustering, was implemented to automatize the process. Almost 80% of the cases were detected between Kenitra and Casablanca. The mean distance of detected oil spills from coasts is about 35 km, while the Atlantic Exclusive Economic Zone boundaries are 370 km away from coasts (exempting the area near Canary Islands).