A proactive system for maritime environment monitoring

The ability to remotely detect and monitor oil spills at sea is becoming increasingly important due to the high demand of oil based products. As a consequence, shipping routes are becoming very crowded and the likelihood of oil slicks occurring is also increasing. In this frame, a fully integrated remote sensing system can act as a valuable monitoring tool. We propose an integrated and interoperable system able to monitor ship traffic and marine operators, using sensing capabilities from a variety of electronic sensors, along with geo-positioning tools, and through a communication infrastructure. Our system is capable of transferring data, freely and seamlessly, between different elements of the information system (and their users). In this way different data are brought together, easily and in a consistent and usable form. The system also integrates a collection of decision support services providing proactive functionalities. Such services demonstrate the potentiality of the system in facilitating dynamic links between different data, models and actors, as indicated by the performed field tests.