Machine Learning for the Detection of Oil Spills in Satellite Radar Images
Miroslav Kubat, Robert C. Holte and Stan Matwin
Department of Computer Science
University of Ottawa 15o Louis Pasteur
Ottawa Ontario, K1N 6N5 Canada
Abstract
During a project examining the use of machine learning techniques for oil spill detection, we encountered several essential questions that we 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 these issues to properties of the oil spill application, such as its imbalanced class distribution , that are shown to be common to many applications. Our solutions to these issues are implemented in the Canadian Environmental Hazards Detection System (CEHDS), which is about to undergo field testing.