Application of Bimodal Histogram Method to Oil Spill Detection from a Satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar Image

As one of segmentation techniques for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image with oil spill, we applied a bimodal histogram method to discriminate oil pixels from non-oil pixels. The threshold of each moving window was objectively determined using the two peaks in the histogram distribution of backscattering coefficients from ENVISAT ASAR image. To reduce the effect of wind speed on oil spill detection, we selected ASAR image which satisfied a limit of wind speeds for successful detection. Overall, a commonly used adaptive threshold method has been applied with a subjectively-determined single threshold. In contrast, the bimodal histogram method utilized herein produces a variety of thresholds objectively for each moving window by considering the characteristics of statistical distribution of backscattering coefficients. Comparison between the two methods revealed that the bimodal histogram method exhibited no significant difference in terms of performance when compared to the adaptive threshold method, except for around the edges of dark oil spots. Thus, we anticipate that the objective method based on the bimodality of oil slicks may also be applicable to the detection of oil spills from other SAR imagery.

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