An Oil Slick Detection Index Based on Landsat 8 Remote Sensing Images

It is important to detect oil slicks from the sea. Compared to traditional multispectral imager, such as MODIS, MERIS, and AVHRR, operational land imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 satellite is more suitable for detecting floating oil slicks for its high signal-noise ratio. However, traditional detection indices were not generic for oil slicks from different sources in different seas using OLI images. To precisely detect them, this paper proposed an index, named Landsat 8 oil slick detection index (L8OSDI), to identify oil slicks using Landsat 8 OIL images. Three images of different sea areas with oil slicks from different sources were used to test the applicability and superiority of L8OSDI. The experimental results indicated that the proposed index was applicable for detecting oil slicks from different sources in different sea areas, especially for oil slicks formed by oil exploration and natural seepage.