Monitoring sea surface with SAR: studies and applications

In recent decades, the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has been increasingly used as a powerful tool for sea surface monitoring thanks to its peculiar features (all weather, day and night monitoring). Among possible applications, SAR is widely used for oil spill detection and tracking on the sea surface because of its capabilities to evidence the wave damping induced by surface active slicks; it is also possible to measure natural phenomena such as wind stress or surface currents. In recent years we have developed and tested algorithms for automatic oil spill detection and wind extraction from ERS and ENVISAT images. In this paper we first resume our experience, showing the present status and planned advances. We also show some examples of operational applications, done in the framework of national and international projects. A special attention is paid to InterRisk project, where an open system architecture, based on noted GIS and web standards, has been set up in order to integrate and harmonise different kind of data (satellite, in-situ, model simulations) from different service providers in order to allow users an easy and effective access to the information needed.