A number of experiments all over the world have proven that satellite borne SAR images constitute a valuable tool to monitor oceanic environment, preventing it from overexploitation or pollution matters and it can also help to evaluate the full implications of natural or man made hazards. In fact, thanks to their capability to cover large areas, in all weather conditions, during the day as well as during the night, spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) techniques constitute an extremely promising alternative to traditional surveillance methods. Nevertheless, in order to assure further usability of SAR images, specific data mining tools are still to be developed to provide an efficient automatic interpretation of SAR data. In the last years, our group has been studying, analyzing and validating several dedicated methods for different marine applications: namely, ship detection, extraction of the coastline and detection and rough classification of pollutants in the sea surface.