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Eye in the Sky for Oil Spill Control
01 Sep 2006
The use of satellite imagery to manage oil spills at sea is set to improve due to the award of a 5m baseline services contract to the MARCOAST consortium by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The project, which will run until 2008, reflects the ongoing integration of technologies and information services under the Global Monitoring of Environment and Security (GMES) framework, initiated by ESA and the European Commission. GMES aims to support the implementation of international conventions and EC policies which call for harmonised spatial monitoring and frequent reporting.
As part of the MARCOAST consortium, engaging 32 partners from 10 countries and being led by Alcatel, BMT has responsibility for oil spill drift forecasts.
The initial integrated baseline service for satellite oil spill surveillance, detection and drift forecasting will cover the Agean and will involve Italian and Greek organisations. Integrated spill services for other European sea regions such as the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the North West Atlantic Bonn Agreement area will be part of the MARCOAST extension services programme.
By providing rapid detection of spills and accurate forecasting of their drift, the speed of response to incidents, especially those threatening ecologically vulnerable sites, will be increased and the scale of any impact and subsequent cleanup operations reduced.
The BMT contribution will draw on current experience in providing operational spill surveillance in South East Asia as well as other work underway in the company to create a web services infrastructure for established marine information products such as the Oil Spill Information System (OSIS) and the Search and Rescue Information System (SARIS).
MJInformation No: 22250
