Oil spills distribution in the Middle and Southern Adriatic Sea as a result of intensive ship traffic

Abstract

     Oil slick detection by synthetic aperture radars (SAR) is a proven and commonly used operational technique, which showed that the seas of the Mediterranean are often polluted by oil and oily products. For the period 2003-2011, the Envisat and Radarsat-1 SAR images were available for analysis, thanks to the several projects. About 300 SAR images have been analysed over the Middle and Southern Adriatic Sea, in order to detect marine oil spills and other phenomena causing similar signatures. Analysing many oil spills detected in the Adriatic Sea, their sizes were determined between 0.1 km² and 108 km². Most of the spills were located along the main shipping routes, especially in the ship corridor along the Adriatic Sea axis. They were, most probably deliberate slicks released from ships during transportation or fishing operations, while suspected source of the largest spills is tank washing or illegal discharges.