European Maritime Safety Agency CleanSeaNet Activities in the North Sea

The transport of goods and people both within and from outside of the European Union (EU) depends heavily on its seas and oceans and the ports located on Europe’s coasts. The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) plays a significant role in monitoring and protecting those maritime regions of Europe from pollution and also in areas such as maritime safety and maritime security. Since its establishment in 2002, the role of EMSA has developed so that it offers a broad range of implementation and operational services to the European Commission and to EU Member States. The operational tasks of EMSA include providing a pollution prevention service, for example, and Earth Observation Services using satellite imagery. In particular, its CleanSeaNet (CSN) Service offers a European satellite-based oil spill and vessel detection service to help identify pollution entering the marine environment from ships in EU waters. This chapter provides an overview of the activities of EMSA in general and then considers in more detail the CSN Service. It examines data on satellite imagery for the period 2007–2011 for the North Sea region of Europe and identifies how those images have contributed to monitoring the region to identify oil inputs to the sea.