On Oil Spills and Satellites
Somewhere in the world, almost every week, there is an oil spill in the sea. And while it’s only the really big spills that get media attention, all the little ones cause big damage too.
This year alone, protected wetlands and nature reserves were contaminated when 1,000 tonnes of oil spilled when a barge capsized off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago. In the Middle East, Houthi rebels attacked a Liberian-flagged tanker, resulting in a 200-kilometre oil spill. And at the end of July, a tanker carrying 1.4 million litres of industrial oil capsized, causing a four-kilometre oil spill off Manila in the Philippines.
Smaller spills can involve ships dumping contaminated bulk water, or direct attacks on oil pipelines and tankers. In total, it is estimated that there are 3000 major illegal dumping incidents in Europe alone every year. With devastating and often long-lasting effects on marine ecosystems.
It is often difficult to find the spills, and it can be even more difficult to prove afterwards who did it. However, there are now various open-source observation tools that have made it possible to identify ships and even hold perpetrators accountable in the event of environmental disasters.
SkyTruth is a non-profit organisation that conducts satellite monitoring to detect oil spills and other causes of environmental degradation.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) has a toolkit can show how to recognise different types of oil and what they might look like on the water.
Other similar tools include the Australian Marine Authorities Oil Spill Aerial Observation and Identification guide and International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) Guidelines.
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