Estimation oil-water mixture ratio using hybrid-polarized synthetic aperture radar

The oil-water mixture ratio for oil spills on the ocean surface is an important parameter for volume estimation of oil spills, response strategy for the oil spills, cleanup operations, and remediation planning for the impacts on wildlife. The hybrid-polarized (HP) mode compact polarization (CP) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a new SAR mode. Such new SARs have been carried by several earth observation systems. We present a methodology to retrieve the oil-water mixture ratio at the ocean surface using CP SAR imagery. The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle SAR (UA VSAR) L band observations collected on June 23, 2010 over the site of the Deep Water Horizon drilling rig will be used. The CP data is simulated from the quad-pol UA VSAR observations.