The vastness of the ocean allows polluters to evade detection in all but the most egregious violations. SkyTruth aims to change that with Ceruleanan orbital coastal water monitoring platform that detects not only oil spills but also the ships producing them faster and with greater certainty than ever before.
The nonprofit organization has been around for more than 20 years, acting as a watchdog and advocate in situations like oil spills and conservation efforts. Satellite imagery has always been useful in such cases, but only recently has the frequency and quality of data become good enough to be applied in real time.
While we still rule out spotting an oil spill or spill the moment it happens, many areas of Earth are imaged multiple times a day or even hourly in extremely high definition. This data could help pinpoint the timing and extent of an oil spill from an offshore drilling operation before it spreads too far.
Cerulean is the software platform they’ve built to ingest and analyze orbital imagery and other data to both detect and capture pollutants and provide improved estimates of water pollution around the world.
This kind of data is difficult to obtain directly from official sources, as these are in turn based on vessel activity reports and other indirect measurements. Determining the existence of leakage, dumping or other illegal activity is difficult enough in the first place, but it is more difficult to clearly state its magnitude, and assigning responsibility is even more difficult.
But with satellites tracking and analyzing Cerulean, the problem and its producer can sometimes be positively identified in a single image.
The platform does not look at the optical spectrum, but on synthetic aperture radar data, which is able to detect differences in texture on the surface — such as the difference between oil and water. The makers of Cerulean built a machine learning model that detects any suspicious misses or trails and then allows users to rewind and find ships that were stuck nearby at the time.
Image Credits: Blue
It is easy to use. I found a spot and the boat that almost certainly left it behind in about 30 seconds. You can try it here for yourself — just know that it’s “in beta,” like many things.
Of course, natural oil spills, turbulence, shadows, and other harmless activities can look a bit like oil spills. And not all boats – perhaps even the majority of boats – are tracked through their beacons, as Global Fishing Watch has discovered. (Perhaps not surprisingly, the two organizations work together.)
This means that Cerulean is not a solution by itself, but a tool used in conjunction with others and with human supervision. But even non-specialists can use it, they point out, and the data is compelling without any sort of academic or defensive trappings.
Image Credits: Blue
For example, in one study conducted in 2022, SkyTruth noted that European authorities have confirmed reports of 32 oil spills of human origin. But based on satellite data, they believe the number is probably a hundred times higher – around 3,000. Similarly, it was once estimated that about half of oil spills are natural. A SAR study suggested it is more than 6%. When estimates are orders of magnitude lower, it makes you think!
This week, SkyTruth is publishing five case studies, short reports on recent work with advocacy groups around the world. Here’s what they’ve managed to do:
- The Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense has used Cerulean to monitors deepwater drilling infrastructure for leaks and leaks. They hope to create daily alerts for fishermen, who are not only at immediate health risk from the spots, but are also catching fewer and unhealthy fish. “We are trying to fill an information gap to conduct litigation that will help communities seek compensation for the damage caused by these leaks,” said the group’s lawyer, Santiago Piñeros Durán.
- Indonesia’s Ocean Justice Initiative hopes to quantify and improve accountability for the all-too-frequent spills in Indonesia. The country’s highly active shipping sector, according to Cerulean data, produces as many oil spills as the next five countries combined — more than 100 a year on average. With events like these, IOJI and others working to change the country’s regulatory structure will have something to point to in court.
- Runner of a small indonesian resort, Andrew Dixon uses Cerulean to monitor the coast off Bintan, where — luckily for him — there haven’t been any major spills in a decade. But the next time there is one, or even a stubborn little one, he’ll see it and report it. “To be able to match a leak with the launch of a ship is amazing,” he said. “In the past, this was a laborious process, but now it’s all automated. Just having captains know they’re being watched is powerful.”
- British climate advocacy organization Uplift used Cerulean data to examine this frequency and size of oil spills affecting the country’s waters. It is obvious that leaked or spilled oil harms wildlife, but the scale of the harm depends on the scale of the spills. “By mapping oil spills hundreds of miles offshore, SkyTruth has helped us quantify and visualize the damage being caused and strengthen the case for ending new oil and gas production in the North Sea,” said Uplift’s Daniel Jones.
- The 2022 report mentioned above regarding bilge disposal (32 vs. 3,000 slicks) reveals the true scale of this problem, which is a necessary step in creating new practices and regulations around it.
Cerulean is a work in progress — although you can use it today, it’s constantly being iterated upon. CTO Jason Schatz noted in response to my questions that the model itself is improving, but that users who want to avoid false positives should limit it to high-confidence identifiers. And it’s strictly based on orbital observation and beacon data – no one goes out with a boat and makes sure it’s really oil.
“We have manually inspected satellite imagery at several hundred locations,” he noted, however. “We can never be absolutely sure of the composition of a stain using satellite data alone, but it’s the best we can do at scale.”
This scale of visibility is only really available via satellite and through machine learning models that convert reams of data no human has time to parse into actionable analytics. SkyTruth’s plan for 2024 is to improve Cerulean with the improved model Schatz mentioned, an interface for users to set up notifications for new slicks, more training and feedback sessions with partners, and of course more work with interested organizations and individuals. You can watch SkyTruth here.
