Shattri Mansor
Spatial and Numerical Modeling Laboratory, Institute of Advanced Technology, University Putra Malaysia
43400 UPM Serdang, Malaysia
E-mail: shattri@eng.upm.edu.my
When Jules Verne published his books entitled "Five Weeks in Balloon" and "20,000 Leagues under the Sea", in the years of 1864 and 1869, his words were as myth; and nobody could accept that someday mankind to be able to go thousands of kilometers up, and his eyes through the skies would take various images from hundreds of meters under the seas!!
And now, we will not be surprised if automatic taken images come through a ready system, detector finds a disaster's place, and then another intelligent system chooses a solution. Just is the time to act; as soon as possible..!
Oil spills are serious environmental disasters often leading to significant, long-term impacts on the environment, ecology and socio-economic activity of area, in both faces of inland and offshore environments. Development and resources using are not avoidable, but is important to know how can manage reasonable and in the right moment if any disaster happens. Where is the most sensitive area to protect? What is the priority to do? This is the information century; how much the others' knowledge can help in fast decision making?
Including more than 4670 km coastal borders with valuable mangrove swamps, shrimp prawns, birds' breed and nesting areas, turtles egg laying as well as recreation and tourist resorts, has formed Malaysia as a big and important of coastal natural resources. Malaysia's coastal waters also experience oil pollution from bilge pumping, as well as from tank cleaning, which leads to dumping of oil and sludge by ocean going vessels. Collisions and groundings of ocean-going tankers also cause oil pollution. All these issues encouraged this project researchers to create an intelligent system for assisting the managers in process of decision making in the case of oil spill happening in Malaysian waters.
Key words: Oil Spill, Satellite Imagery, Detection System, Geographic Information System (GIS), Decision Support System (DSS)