European Maritime safety Agency (EMSA) operates CleanSeaNet, a satellite-based oil spill surveillance and vessel detection service.
The service is available to all EU Member States, EFTA/EEA Member States and acceding and candidate countries. Territorial waters of coastal Member States, and overseas countries and territories may also be monitored.
The CleanSeaNet service analyses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images from Earth Observation satellites to detect possible oil spills on the sea surface.
When a spill is detected, a pollution alert is sent to national authorities. The alerts are available within 30 minutes of the satellite acquiring the image. The national authority then decides how to respond to the alert from CleanSeaNet. A patrol aircraft or vessel may be sent to survey the area and verify the oil spill detection. The vessels detected by satellite in the vicinity of the oil spill may be correlated with vessel traffic reports to increase the likelihood of identifying the probable source of the spill.
CleanSeaNet can also provide access to some additional services including very high resolution optical satellite images, wind speed and direction at the time and place of the image acquisition, as well as meteorological and oceanographic data.
For more information click below link for the CleanSeaNet brochure:
http://emsa.europa.eu/emsa-documents/latest/download/2913/2123/23.html
