Mapping the Brazilian Amazon fluvial sensitivity index to oil spills with Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data

It is important to understand the Solimoes River seasonal hydrological cycle and its dynamics to support systematic environmental monitoring efforts in the Amazon region. These are essential to the contingency response to possible accidents in the existing oil transportation network. This study seeks to map the environmental sensitivity to oil spills in the surroundings of Coari city, Amazonas State (AM). A computational method was employed representing the seasonal inundation phenomenon fluctuations, together with data from the Digital Elevation Model generated by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. These were matched with Coari fluviometric time series information and a Japanese Earth Resources Satellite-1 (JERS-1 SAR) geo-referenced mosaic of the Global Rain Forest Mapping Project. In this context, a mathematical morphology technique (watershed) integrated with all aforementioned data applying MatLab and ArcGIS computing resources generated results that enabled a better spatio-temporal understanding of the Amazon seasonal dynamics. Thus, the principal product of the research was the Coari fluvial oil spill sensitivity index map based on segmented inundation levels obtained with the proposed methodology.