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ISSN 2070-7401 (Print), ISSN 2411-0280 (Online)
Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa
CURRENT PROBLEMS IN REMOTE SENSING OF THE EARTH FROM SPACE

  

Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2026, V. 23, No. 4, pp. 357-374

Application of the SWOT mission in oil pollution monitoring tasks

M.V. Vrublevsky 1 , O.Yu. Lavrova 1 
1 Space Research Institute RAS, Moscow, Russia
Accepted: 07.08.2026
DOI: 10.21046/2070-7401-2026-23-4-357-374
The first results of applying SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite mission data to oil pollution monitoring are presented. The applicability of these data is demonstrated through two tasks. The solution to the first task — using data from the SWOT mission’s Ka-band interferometer, KaRIn (Ka-band Radar Interferometer), as an additional source for monitoring — allowed for the identification of characteristic signatures of oil pollution in SWOT imagery. The solution to the second task — determining the regional wind coefficient using the backward tracking method — enabled a quantitative assessment of the SWOT data contribution to oil pollution monitoring systems. To address the first task, oil pollution verification in the Black Sea waters was conducted, specifically focusing on ship discharges and assessing the consequences of the oil spill at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium marine terminal near Novorossiysk in August 2025. As part of this effort, 30 cases of quasi-simultaneous imaging of oil slicks on the sea surface were identified using Sentinel-1/-2, Landsat-8/-9, and SWOT data from 2023 to 2025. It was established that oil pollution in the KaRIn normalized radar cross-section field manifests as areas of positive contrast with shapes characteristic of oil spills. To address the second task, the wind coefficient in the Kerch Pre-Strait area of the Black Sea was estimated using data obtained between April 17 and December 31, 2025. The wind coefficient was calculated for 107 oil pollution events identified from Sentinel-1/-2 and Landsat-8/-9 data, and for 15 events identified from KaRIn data. The integral value of the wind coefficient was 0.051, and incorporating the SWOT data narrowed the confidence interval width by 9 %. The results confirm the viability of using KaRIn/SWOT data to detect oil pollution, assess its scale and consequences, and determine regional parameters influencing its dynamics.
Keywords: satellite monitoring of oil spills, oil spills, satellite altimetry, satellite interferometry, SWOT, KaRIn
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