MODIS data processing for coastal and marine environment monitoring: A study on anomaly detection and evolution in Gulf of Cagliari (Sardinia-Italy)

In this paper, the authors demonstrate that MODIS sensor multispectral imagery may be used in marine and coastal environment monitoring and for anomaly detection and that MODIS imagery may represent an alternative to SAR techniques in oil spills mapping. Two MODIS dataset of the Gulf of Cagliari (Sardinia - Italy) have been analysed in order to study the sea signal among the visible and infrared wavelengths (bands 1 to 7) and to intercept a reported water anomaly. A simple spectral index is proposed to detect fluorescence anomalies due to oil spills. Using high multitemporal imagery, as MODIS sensor data, a monitoring system of sea surface may be built applying this index. Standard sea temperature elaborations have been used to verify the methodology