Radar Detection of the Oil Spills in the Ivorian South East Sea Waters

This research work aims to analyze hydrocarbon spills along the Ivorian coasts using geospatial techniques. The objective is to geolocate oil spills that occurred from 2018 to 2023 on the Ivorian coast using radar images. These images, available and downloadable from the Copernicus site, processed in ESA SNAP software, have made it possible to detect oil spills, thanks to their ability to distinguish contaminated surfaces from unpolluted water. The techniques used made it possible to carry out radiometric corrections and to remove the speckle noise, followed by the extraction of the spill zones from the differences in water reflectivity. The data processed have been validated thanks to the data from the Project Earth Observation for Sustainable Development (EO4SD)-Marine Resources. The results thus show significant concentrations of spills along the Ivorian coasts, especially in areas close to the oil infrastructures at-49dB in 2018, -48.9 dB in 2019,-57 dB in 2020, -48 dB in 2021,-46 dB in 2022,-48 dB in 2023. These values are low and reflect oil spills. They reduce the Radar backscatter coefficient because of their smoothing effect on the surface of the water. In addition, the spread of flowing hydrocarbons spilled to an east-west preferential direction that is to say from Assinie to Jacqueville. These results highlight the need to improve preventive measures and strengthen environmental policies to reduce the impacts of spills on marine ecosystems. This work opens the way to future research prospects, in particular the automation of the detection of oil spills using artificial intelligence models and the extension of the study to other regions of West Africa. This study is therefore a contribution to environmental monitoring and management of hydrocarbon pollution risks in Côte d'Ivoire.