Assessing the impact of hydrocarbon leakages on vegetation using reflectance spectroscopy

Abstract This paper assesses the capability of hyperspectral remote sensing to detect hydrocarbon leakages in pipelines using vegetation status as an indicator of contamination. A field experiment in real scale and in tropical weather was conducted in which Brachiaria brizantha H.S. pasture plants were grown over soils contaminated with small volumes of liquid hydrocarbons (HCs). The contaminations involved volumes of hydrocarbons that ranged between 2 L and 12.7 L of gasoline and diesel per m3 of soil, which were applied to the crop parcels over the course of 30 days. The leaf and canopy reflectance spectra of contaminated and control plants were acquired within 350–2500 nm wavelengths. The leaf and canopy reflectance spectra were mathematically transformed by means of first derivative (FD) and continuum removal (CR) techniques. Using principal component analysis (PCA), the spectral measurements could be grouped into either two or three contamination groups. Wavelengths in the red edge were found to contain the largest spectral differences between plants at distinct, evolving contamination stages. Wavelengths centred on water absorption bands were also important to differentiating contaminated from healthy plants. The red edge position of contaminated plants, calculated on the basis of FD spectra, shifted substantially to shorter wavelengths with increasing contamination, whereas non-contaminated plants displayed a red shift (in leaf spectra) or small blue shift (in canopy spectra). At leaf scale, contaminated plants were differentiated from healthy plants between 550–750 nm, 1380–1550 nm, 1850–2000 nm and 2006–2196 nm. At canopy scale, differences were substantial between 470–518 nm, 550–750 nm, 910–1081 nm, 1116–1284 nm, 1736–1786 nm, 2006–2196 nm and 2222–2378 nm. The results of this study suggests that remote sensing of B. brizantha H.S. at both leaf and canopy scales can be used as an indicator of gasoline and diesel contaminations for the detection of small leakages in pipelines.