Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data exhibited dramatic, spatially extensive changes from
June 2009 to June 2010 in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. To determine whether these changes were associated
with the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill, twenty-nine sediment samples were collected in 2011 from
shoreline and nearshore–interior coastal marsh locations where oil was not observed visually or with
optical sensors during the spill. Oil source-fingerprinting and polytopic vector analysis were used to link
DWH oil to PolSAR changes. Our results prove that DWH oil extended beyond shorelines and confirm the
association between presence of DWH oil and PolSAR change. These results show that the DWH oil spill
probably affected much more of the southeastern Louisiana marshland than originally concluded from
ground and aerial surveys and verify that PolSAR is a powerful tool for tracking oil intrusion into marshes
with high probability even where contamination is not visible from above the canopy.
Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (