On the degree of polarization for SAR sea oil slick observation

A polarimetric model to relate the degree of polarization, DoP, to the sea surface scattering with and without oil slicks, under low-to-moderate wind conditions, is proposed. DoP, measured directly from the Mueller scattering matrix, is shown to be a reliable measure of the departure from Bragg scattering; a phenomenon that, under low-to-moderate wind conditions, occurs when an oil slick is present. Following this theoretical rationale, a simple filter is developed to observe oil slicks in quad-polarimetric full-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Experiments, undertaken on a meaningful set of quad-polarization Single Look Complex (SLC) C-band RADARSAT-2 SAR data, where both well-known oil slicks and a weak-damping look-alike are in place, demonstrate the soundness of the model and its effectiveness from an operational viewpoint. (C) 2013 International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Inc. (ISPRS) Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.