Collaboration for Oil Satellite Tracking in the Americas (COSTA)

Background and Rationale

The Wider Americas Region, including the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, renowned for its pristine ocean and robust tourism, have faced the challenges of many oil spill incidents or near misses from both oil producing facilities and vessels in recent years. On the other hand, satellite remote sensing is a proven and effective way to detect and characterize oil spill and publicly available free satellite imagery to monitor the spill are available.

The COSTA program is an international effort supported by GEO, IOC-UNESCO’s Sub-Commission for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions and the United Nations Environment Programme to train and coordinate a region wide satellite monitoring and analysis program to help with oil spill prevention, early mitigation and response in the Americas. During its pilot phase, the first oil spill monitoring program in the region became operational in the island country of Trinidad and Tobago since July 2021. Training opportunities to learn about satellite oil spill monitoring using mostly freely available satellite optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery and GIS tools are now underway with other countries in the region, and are led by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in US and Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) in Trinidad and Tobago.

Past Workshops

SARGASSUM AND OIL SPILLS MONITORING PILOT PROJECT FOR THE CARIBBEAN SEA & ADJACENT REGIONS WORKSHOP

Training in Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago is the leading Caribbean producer of oil and gas with extensive oil facilities and several significant oil spills in the past. It is now the first country in the Wider Americas Region which has an operational oil spill monitoring program.

18 people from three Trinidad and Tobago government agencies have completed a US NOAA-led virtual training course from May to July 2021. Since the beginning of the operational monitoring on July 1st, hundreds of oil leak reports have been issued and one significant oil spill event in August was supported using satellite imagery.

Example Marine Pollution Surveillance Report

Ongoing Regional Training

NOAA’s Satellite Analysis Branch, now partnered with Trinidad and Tobago’s IMA, is currently in the process of engaging and providing training of satellite oil spill monitoring in English and Spanish for interested government organizations and institutes in the Americas region. Countries which has been or plan to be trained by the COSTA program are Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico and Peru, with a few central America countries showing interests as well.

The comprehensive training course, which closely resembles NOAA’s internal training guideline, covers satellite oil spill detection theory and techniques, imagery downloads and analysis, as well as hands-on case studies on oil spill detection and reports issuing.

If your organization is interested in:

learning more about the satellite oil spill monitoring or
becoming users of the oil spill report

Please contact: Bonnie Zhu from NOAA and Hamish Asmath from IMA.

Collaboration for Oil Satellite Tracking in the Americas (COSTA)

Background and Rationale

Past Workshops

SARGASSUM AND OIL SPILLS MONITORING PILOT PROJECT FOR THE CARIBBEAN SEA & ADJACENT REGIONS WORKSHOP

Training in Trinidad and Tobago

Ongoing Regional Training

COSTA Partners

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