title: An innovative methodological approach in the frame of Marine Strategy Framework Directive: a statistical model based on ship detection SAR data for monitoring programmes.
abstract: The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) is focused on protection, preservation and restoration of the marine environment by achieving and maintaining Good Environmental Status (GES) by 2020. Within this context, this paper presents a methodological approach for a fast and repeatable monitoring that allows quantitative assessment of seabed abrasion pressure due to recreational boat anchoring. The methodology consists of two steps: a semi-automatic procedure based on an algorithm for the ship detection in SAR imagery and a statistical model to obtain maps of spatial and temporal distribution density of anchored boats. Ship detection processing has been performed on 36 ASAR VV-pol images of Liguria test site, for the three years 2008, 2009 and 2010. Starting from the pointwise distribution layer produced by ship detection in imagery, boats points have been subdivided into 4 areas where a constant distribution density has been assumed for the entire period 2008-2010. In the future, this methodology will be applied also to higher resolution data of Sentinel-1 mission, specifically designed for the operational needs of the European Programme Copernicus.
authors.affiliation: ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), via V. Brancati, 48, Rome, Italy. Electronic address: francesca.pieralice@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pieralice
authors.affiliation: ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), via V. Brancati, 48, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Raffaele
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Proietti
authors.affiliation: ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), via V. Brancati, 48, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: La Valle
authors.affiliation: ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), via V. Brancati, 48, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Giordano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giorgi
authors.affiliation: Galileian Plus S.r.l., Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mazzolena
authors.affiliation: ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), via V. Brancati, 48, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Taramelli
authors.affiliation: ISPRA (Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), via V. Brancati, 48, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Luisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Nicoletti
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D019015:Geologic Sediments; D008386:Marine Biology / Q000379:methods*; D015233:Models, Statistical; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods; D011825:Radar; D012767:Ships
keywords: Boat anchoring; Copernicus; Environmental monitoring; Marine Strategy Framework Directive; Ship detection; Synthetic aperture radar