Chapter 9 SAR Oil Spill Imaging, Interpretation and Information Retrieval Techniques Camilla Brekke 1 and Cathleen E. Jones 2 Oil spills in the ocean reduce the small-scale surface roughness, leading to increased forward scattering and reduced backscatter (Figure 1.1). Figure 1.1 An oil spill causes increased forward scattering and reduced backscattering of the electromagnetic signal relative to nearby slick- free seawater. This causes a slick to be darker than surrounding clean water in radar images and, 1 UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway 2 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology