Time-series of dual-polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data to observe oil seeps

In this study, SAR oil spill observation is investigated for different polarizations, incidence angles and wind conditions. The dataset is composed by a time-series of 42 TerraSAR-X dualpol SAR images acquired between July 2011 and April 2016. The incidence angle, wind speed and polarization dependency for oil spill observation is shown for the first time using a large time-series of the same oil type. Experimental results show that the oil seepage observation is impaired with increasing the incidence angle and strongly depends on wind conditions. However, those effects are more pronounced using the single-polarization channels, while they are mitigated by using dual-polarimetric channels.