Environmental Monitoring of Submarine Cable in Madeira Island

Abstract

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a sensing technique that allows continuous data acquisition of strain rate and temperature with exceptional spatial resolution, up to few meters, for extensive lengths up to 100 km. The ubiquitous nature of optical fiber cables rendered DAS an appealing alternative for geophysical sensing, allowing cost-effective data collection with extensive spatial coverage leveraging existing infrastructure. This study presents findings from the deployment of a DAS system on a dark fiber located on the Madeira Island, Portugal. Through the implementation of 2D filtering, simultaneous analysis of data from road traffic, ocean waves, and seismic activity was achieved.