Abstract

Due to a paucity of relevant baseline data, remote sensing technology is finding rapidly increasing application in the environmental management of many oil fields within third world countries, including the Niger River Delta fields. A change-detection study done to develop a prototype for establishing a regional environmental database in this area used maps and images during 10 points in time. Each raster file was georeferenced to the present map projection used within the Delta. The nonsatellite files were less accurate when georeferenced compared with newer satellite images because of internal distortions or cartographic differences. Nonetheless, the surface information contained on these older sources was critical to the project and therefore utilized. The project achieved its goals. Different data sources with differing resolutions and cartographic properties were spatially integrated and interpreted in a consistent format to document and then evaluate environmental changes occurring within the area through time. For the older data, georeferencing errors approached ± 1 km, whereas with the newer data, only the oblique SPOT imagery gave inconsistent georeferencing results. On the whole, the imagery, dated from 1972 to 1993 and enhanced by global positioning system (GPS) fixes, provided a qualitative mapping accuracy of ± 100 m for the project. The potentials of remote sensing in the environmental management of oil fields such as the Niger River Delta remain significant.