The geospatial response to the Deepwater Horizon spill includes a contingent from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency that daily analyze imagery of the coast to provide up-to-date intelligence on the battle against the spreading oil slick. The agency has supplied a team of analysts that are reviewing classified imagery manually to heads-up digitize the actual location of the boom that has been deployed to keep the slick from reaching shore, and they’re also providing daily updates of satellite-derived locations and extents of the plume of oil in the gulf.
“When we started to put out this map with actual satellite-verified boom, there was often a discrepancy. People were seeing long stretches of coastline without boom, even though it had been reported as deployed,” said Drew Stephens, who coordinated the GIS effort in BP’s Houma incident command post. “We had a verified way of saying that it was not there any more. We could actually watch boom go from deployed properly, to out of place, to washed up on a beach over a period of three days or so.”
This daily data product has been instrumental in the deployment of personnel to have the most effective use of resources to combat the ever-widening impact of this disaster. You can read more about the Deepwater Horizon mapping effort in this interview.
