MACHINE LEARNING FOR THE DETECTION OF OIL-SPILLS IN SATELLITE RADAR IMAGES

During a project examining the use of machine learning techniques for oil spill detection, we encountered several essential questions that w e believe deserve the attention of the research community. We use our particular case study to illustrate such issues as problem formulation , selection of evaluation measures, and data preparation. We relate th ese issues to properties of the oil spill application, such as its imb alanced class distribution, that are shown to be common to many applic ations. Our solutions to these issues are implemented in the Canadian Environmental Hazards Detection System (CEHDS), which is about to unde rgo field testing.