Novel oil spill indices for sentinel-2 imagery: A case study of natural seepage in Qaruh Island, Kuwait

Mohamed Zakzouk; Islam Abou El-Magd; Elham M Ali; Abdulaziz M Abdulaziz; Amjad Rehman; Tanzila Saba

doi:10.1016/j.mex.2023.102520

Novel oil spill indices for sentinel-2 imagery: A case study of natural seepage in Qaruh Island, Kuwait

MethodsX. 2023 Dec 12:12:102520. doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2023.102520. eCollection 2024 Jun.

Authors

Mohamed Zakzouk^{1

2

3}, Islam Abou El-Magd¹, Elham M Ali¹, Abdulaziz M Abdulaziz², Amjad Rehman³, Tanzila Saba³

Affiliations

¹ Environment Division, National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences, Cairo, Egypt.
² Mining, Petroleum, & Metallurgical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.
³ Artificial Intelligence & Data Analytics Lab, College of Computer and Information Sciences, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Oil spills are a paramount and immediate challenge affecting marine ecosystems globally. Effective and timely monitoring tools, such as oil detection indices, offer a swift means to track oil spill spread across vast oceanic expanses. Moreover, these indices enhance data clarity, making it more conducive for machine learning and deep learning algorithms. This study leverages the natural seepage occurring around Qaruh Island, Kuwait as a unique context for the spectral analysis of oil spills using Sentinel-2 multispectral imagery due to repeated occurrences in the same region. This research evaluated 859 single band and 455 multichannel combinations to identify the most effective combinations in oil-water separability, employing the Jeffries-Matusita (JM) distance measure as a key metric. Bands 1, 2, 3, 8A, 11, and 12 consistently featured among the top-performing indices combinations $\frac{B 1 - B 11}{B 1 + B 11}; \frac{B 1 + B 2}{B 3 + B 11}; \frac{B 1 + B 2}{B 3 + B 12}; \frac{B 1 + B 2}{B 3 + B 8 A}$ affirming the significant effect of oil spills on visible, Near-Infrared (NIR), and Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) bands. Notably, the indices developed in this study outperformed those from prior research in terms of suitability to unsupervised classification algorithms. A significant conclusion of this study is that incorporating a higher number of bands in the analysis did not correlate with an increase in JM values, suggesting that the selection of specific, informative bands is more critical than the volume of input data. These findings underscore the indispensable role of Sentinel-2 imagery in environmental investigations and highlight the potential for focused, efficient analysis using strategic band combinations for effective oil spill detection.•This study identified optimized Sentinel-2 band combinations for oil-water separability, benefiting from naturally occurring spills around Qaruh Island.•The proposed indices outperformed the previous indices for oil spill visualization and clustering.•The new indices highlighted the critical role of specific band selection over the volume of input data for effective oil spill detection.

Keywords: Jeffries-matusita distance; Novel Oil Spill Indeices for Sentinel-2 Imagery; Oil spill detection; Qaruh island; Sentinel-2 imagery; Spectral analysis.