Real-time oil spill concentration assessment through fluorescence imaging and deep learning

Journal of Hazardous Materials
By: , and 

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Abstract

Oil spills may pose severe ecological and socioeconomic threats, necessitating rapid and accurate environmental assessment. Traditional assessment methods used to determine the extent of a spill including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, satellite imaging, and visual surveys, are often time-consuming, expensive, and limited by weather conditions or sampling constraints. Furthermore, these methods frequently struggle to provide real-time data crucial for prompt decision-making during spill emergencies. This study addresses these limitations by combining fluorescence imaging, deep learning, a mobile application, and a data management system for automated and real-time oil spill assessment. Our approach leverages a convolutional neural network architecture for feature extraction coupled with a custom regression model, trained and evaluated on a self-curated comprehensive dataset of 1,530 fluorescence images from two distinct oil types, a napthalenic crude oil and an aromatic-napthalenic crude oil, at concentrations ranging from 0 to 500 mg/L. The proposed approach demonstrates superior performance compared to both traditional machine learning models and more complex deep learning architectures, achieving an R² score of 0.9958 and RMSE of 9.28. The application enables rapid, cost-effective field measurements with robust data tracking and analysis capabilities. This research advances oil spill monitoring technology with a scalable solution that balances accuracy, speed, and accessibility for real-time environmental assessment and emergency response.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Real-time oil spill concentration assessment through fluorescence imaging and deep learning
Series title Journal of Hazardous Materials
DOI 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.139374
Volume 496
Publication Date July 27, 2025
Year Published 2025
Language English
Publisher Elsevier
Contributing office(s) Columbia Environmental Research Center
Description 139374, 10 p.
Additional publication details