• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.6_1
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• pp.1773-1784
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• 2021

In order to minimize damage to oil spill accidents in the ocean, it is essential to collect a spilled area as soon as possible. Thus satellite-based remote sensing is a powerful source to detect oil spills in the ocean. With the recent rapid increase in the number of available satellites, it has become possible to generate a status report of marine oil spills soon after the accident. In this study, the oil spill area was calculated using various satellite images for the Symphony oil spill accident that occurred off the coast of Qingdao Port, China, on April 27, 2021. In particular, improving the accuracy of oil spill area determination was applied using high-resolution commercial satellite images with a spatial resolution of 2m. Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, LANDSAT-8, GEO-KOMPSAT-2B (GOCI-II) and Skysat satellite images were collected from April 27 to May 13, but five images were available considering the weather conditions. The spilled oil had spread northeastward, bound for coastal region of China. This trend was confirmed in the Skysat image and also similar to the movement prediction of oil particles from the accident location. From this result, the look-alike patch observed in the north area from the Sentinel-1A (2021.05.01) image was discriminated as a false alarm. Through the survey period, the spilled oil area tends to increase linearly after the accident. This study showed that high-resolution optical satellites can be used to calculate more accurately the distribution area of spilled oil and contribute to establishing efficient response strategies for oil spill accidents.