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It can be argued that despite years of research, the true impacts of oil spill pollution on the environment and human sources of livelihoods are yet to be completely understood. Tools such as environmental sensitivity index (ESI) mapping can provide useful information that can significantly mitigate or help eliminate the known impacts of crude oil pollution, by proactively identifying environmentally sensitive areas. This study adapted the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and geographic information systems (GIS) based multiple criteria analysis (MCA) approach in the objective determination of sensitive sections of the NDR coastal areas, by combining several competing and or related evaluation criteria. The AHP was used to determine and assign relative weights to the data layers through a pairwise comparison evaluation matrix of mutually exclusive evaluation criteria using the Delphi technique, while the MCA was used to aggregate the evaluation criteria into a single map. The results of the MCA analysis show that over 57 % of the study area is sensitive to oil spill pollution in one form or the other. 68 % of the identified sensitive areas are classified as extremely environmentally sensitive with 11,752.14km2, while 7.1 % are classified as less sensitive. This relative classification of environmental sensitivity in the study area is termed the Niger Delta Relative Environmental Sensitivity Index (NDRESI). The implication of these results is that more has to be done if the very sensitive environment of the NDR is to be conserved by tougher environmental legislations, environmental monitoring and environmental education.

Laboratory experiments were conducted to study the effects of oil spills and dispersants on the growth of the red tide organism Chaetoceros sp. Crude oil produced from the Chinese Bohai Sea, diesel oil, and the chemical dispersant (GM-2) produced in China were added into Chaetoceros sp. cultures. The results showed that both crude oil and diesel oil could enhance the growth of Chaetoceros sp. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA, and the confidence interval was 95%. At a concentration of 20 mg L−1 crude oil and a concentration of 10 μL L−1 diesel oil, Chaetoceros sp. bloomed to 1.57 × 105 cells mL−1 (p < 0.01) at day 14 and 3.55 × 104 cells mL−1 (p < 0.05) at day 10, respectively. A concentration of 10 μL L−1 diesel oil stimulated the specific growth rate for Chaetoceros sp. of 0.49 d−1 over 10 days. The specific growth rate of Chaetoceros sp. with 20 mg L−1 crude oil alone was 0.46 d−1 over 14 days. However, the mixture of oil and dispersant did not enhance the growth of Chaetoceros sp. as significantly as oil alone. These results implied that oil spills in coastal waters can stimulate Chaetoceros sp., and the specific dispersant GM-2 applied following oil spills may be unlikely to further enhance the growth of Chaetoceros sp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, oil spill pollution is one of the major environmental concerns for sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) aquaculture. During oil spills, spraying chemical dispersants is generally considered an efficient oil spill response. However, the impact of chemical dispersant deployment during oil spills on sea cucumbers is still less known. In this study, we treated sea cucumbers with physically and chemically (by GM-2 chemical dispersant) dispersed Oman crude oil for 24 h. For antioxidant defense capacities, our results showed that physically dispersed crude oil caused a significant elevation on superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities, and glutathione (GSH) content, while chemically dispersed crude oil caused a significant decrease in SOD activity and GSH content with no apparent change in CAT activity. As for non-specific immune responses, our results indicated that physically dispersed crude oil up-regulated acid phosphatase (ACP) and lysozyme (LZM) activities but had no obvious impact on alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity. Differently, chemically dispersed crude oil down-regulated ACP and LZM activities while up-regulating ALP activity. Based on the integrated biomarker response analysis, the overall impact of chemically dispersed crude oil on antioxidant defense capacities and non-specific immune responses of sea cucumbers was more severe than physically dispersed crude oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this assessment of the sensitivity of resources to oil spill pollution, shorelines and marine functional zones were emphasized. A ranking system was developed based on shoreline exposure, slope, and substrate composition, and this system was used to predict the sensitivity of shoreline-associated natural resources. Shore-associated industries were categorized into marine functional zones. The economic-production values of these industries, as well as the degrees of disturbance potentially exerted by oil spills, were ranked to evaluate the sensitivity of these socioeconomic resources. Shoreline and functional zone sensitivity was graded as extreme, high, moderate, or slight. The results indicated that shorelines with estuaries, swamps, mangroves, and cays were extremely sensitive and that tourism and fisheries were extremely sensitive industries. The developed assessment method was applied to the Bohai Sea as a case study. The results indicated that most of the Bohai Sea shoreline was moderately or highly sensitive to potential oil spill pollution; only a few shorelines were identified as extremely sensitive. These extremely sensitive areas predominated in locations where fisheries and tourism are common. Fewer slightly and moderately sensitive maritime spaces were identified in this region, primarily consisting of mining, town, and special utilization zones. This study supports oil spill disaster prevention and mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, oil spill pollution is one of the major environmental concerns for sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) aquaculture. During oil spills, spraying chemical dispersants is generally considered an efficient oil spill response. However, the impact of chemical dispersant deployment during oil spills on sea cucumbers is still less known. In this study, we treated sea cucumbers with physically and chemically (by GM-2 chemical dispersant) dispersed Oman crude oil for 24 h. For antioxidant defense capacities, our results showed that physically dispersed crude oil caused a significant elevation on superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities, and glutathione (GSH) content, while chemically dispersed crude oil caused a significant decrease in SOD activity and GSH content with no apparent change in CAT activity. As for non-specific immune responses, our results indicated that physically dispersed crude oil up-regulated acid phosphatase (ACP) and lysozyme (LZM) activities but had no obvious impact on alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity. Differently, chemically dispersed crude oil down-regulated ACP and LZM activities while up-regulating ALP activity. Based on the integrated biomarker response analysis, the overall impact of chemically dispersed crude oil on antioxidant defense capacities and non-specific immune responses of sea cucumbers was more severe than physically dispersed crude oil.

Oil is a main driving force when it comes to the economic development of a country. But nations around the world have uneven oil distribution, which pushes them toward rapid development of petroleum trade and maritime transportation. With the rising maritime transportation volume of oil, countries around the globe are paying increasing attention to the safe transportation of oil, oil spills from tankers are thus decreasing. However, the oil spill problem still deserves attention and laws and procedures should be strengthened to prevent future accidents and spills. This paper reviews the history of world oil trade and oil spill pollution and puts forward oil spill prevention strategies. The paper looks at the data related to oil spills created by tankers in the past 50 years from 1970 to 2017 and studies the trends in oil trade and oil spill pollution, in a bid to analyze the pollution status of major oil spill accidents and the development of treatment regulations. The paper also explores key factors behind oil spills from tankers and summarizes strategies and directions for the global marine shipping industry to prevent oil tanker pollution in the future based on the aforementioned research. This study offers systematic and scientific information reference for green operation and management of the oil tanker industry and helps government departments and policymakers to adopt reasonable and effective strategies to prevent and handle oil spill accidents from tankers across the world. • Prevention of oil spill of tankers is crucial to marine environment protection. • History of tanker oil spill pollution is reviewed. • Regulations and influencing factors of tanker oil spills are summarized. • Future governance and specific recommendations for tanker oil spill are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We employed GNOME to simulate the oil spill due to the sinking of the tanker "Agia Zoni ΙΙ" in September 2017 in Saronic Gulf. We performed simulations using various combinations of wind and current input, and values of the GNOME parameters, and compared the simulated oil spill trajectories with coastal pollution and satellite data. The best scenario, i.e., the combination that showed the most satisfactory agreement with field data, uses wind data from one of the closest meteorological stations, calculated currents by a hydrodynamic model and default values of the parameters, except for the windage and the refloat half-life whose proposed values are 3–4 % and 6 h, respectively. Neglecting the effect of the wind in the best scenario worsened the agreement. Mass balance results depicted that approximately 47 % of the total 500 tons of the oil spill ended up on the coastline of Attica peninsula and Salamina Island. • The oil spill in Saronic Gulf by tanker Agia Zoni ΙΙ in 2017 was modeled via GNOME. • Simulations were run for various values of winds, currents and GNOME parameters. • Using both wind and current data resulted in satisfactory agreement with field data. • Almost half of spilled oil mass stranded on coasts of Attica and Salamina Island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine pollution has many different sources. This study focuses on oil spills that may occur after a ship collision or during oil extraction and other oil tanker activities. The most critical oil spill accidents are presented, followed by the regulatory framework on maritime oil spill management. Among the measures taken towards the protection of the marine and coastal environment from oil pollution are floating booms and barriers, oil collecting materials and vessels, absorbent materials, chemical dispersants, other chemicals, physical degradation, biodegradation, on-site oil burning. These measures may assist coastal facilities and local authorities in their strategic development of oil spill mitigation planning and response towards coastal and marine protection from oil spills. In the present paper, the aim is to rank the approaches of dealing with the oil spill by means of a multicriteria method. The theoretical background of the selected multicriteria method, called PROMETHEE, is briefly presented; necessary to understand the ranking of the treatment approaches as well as the subsequent findings of the possible criteria for the analysis. Almost all of the scenarios evaluated rank floating booms and barriers as the most suitable methods to deal with oil spill containment, followed by oil collecting materials and vessels.

Oil spills in the ocean are becoming an increasingly serious problem and the search for an adsorption material that is effective and environmentally safe is a popular research topic. This study presents a sorbent micro-ball composed of poly-β-hydroxybutyrate. Field emission scanning electron microscopy was used to observe morphology of the micro-ball. Additionally, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to analyze the surface groups, and nitrogen adsorption was used to determine specific surface area and pore size distribution. The effects of such conditions as initial oil concentration, temperature, pH, and water salinity on the adsorption efficiency were studied. The results show that the equilibration time is 60 min. The adsorption isotherm experiments indicate that the Freundlich model fits the experimental data better than the Langmuir and Henry models, and the adsorption kinetics experimental results show that the pseudo-second-order model fits the experimental data well. The adsorption capacity is proportional to the initial oil concentration. The removal rate increases as the temperature increases, and the adsorption efficacy is highest at a temperature of 25°C. The adsorption capacity varies directly with pH value. Finally, the adsorption capacity of micro-balls increases with increasing seawater salinity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The risk associated with a given hazard (natural or technological) generally results from the interaction between the hazard potential and the vulnerability. This paper is centred on the assessment of the vulnerability variable. A quantitative vulnerability assessment and mapping methodology is proposed, with two main specificities: (1) it is hazard- and spatially-centred (respectively, oil spills and coastal areas) and; (2) the spatial segregation level used is the municipality. Due to the geographic context of the Portuguese mainland coast, the proposed methodology was applied in an attempt to illustrate the spatial distribution and the degree of the vulnerability associated to oil spills for mainland Portugal coastal municipalities. A final map is presented together with other informative elements. Analysis and discussion of the results allows for the understanding that: (1) there is a very heterogeneous and differential distribution of the degree of vulnerability to oil spills along the Portuguese coastline; (2) the application of specific hazard-centred and spatially-centred vulnerability assessment methodologies, comprising multi-dimensional indicators (e.g., geographic, ecological, demographic, social and economic), produces more robust and realistic results, highlighted by a thorough and spatially detailed analysis; and (3) future research is required on vulnerability assessment in Portugal; along side, hazard potential assessment methodologies must also be developed in order to create a final risk profile, which can be an extremely useful tool in spatial planning and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: With the increasing demand of global petroleum, viewing from oil tanker “Prestige” stranding to the latest “Deepwater Horizon Drilling rig” explosion, a variety of catastrophic oil spill accidents at sea, particularly ship''s oil spill, has brought severe hazard to marine ecological environment and human society. Through the sample selected from the case database of historical ships’ oil spill accidents in China, this paper establishes an artificial neural network model for damage assessment of marine oil spill pollution, and writes special program to train and simulate the Back-Propagation Neural Networks with MATLAB toolbox. The experimental results indicate that the damage assessment of oil spill by Back-Propagation Neural Networks is objectively precise and reliable, so as to provide an effective assessment method to claim for compensation caused by ship''s oil spill accidents. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Over the past three decades, intensive research on marine oil spill pollution control has been directed toward the development of mathematical models to predict and forecast the fate and transport of spilled oil and oil products in marine environments. Such research has been focused on selecting locations for the deployment of containment and collection systems to mitigate the effects of spilled oil on the environment. These models can be used for short-term tactical forecasting to help make decisions to contain, control and clean up accidental spill, however, they are not comprehensive for rapid response with regards to the clean up combating techniques strategy and also not accurate for spills detection. This paper proposes an operational research technique via optimal control theory and sequential decision processes as an alternative tool for optimal spill pollution control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 30 years, oil spills have contributed significantly to coastal and marine pollution, causing disturbance of the coastal environment. This recurrent hazard has increasingly been taken into account through prevention plans in Coastal Zones Integrated Management. Numerous studies have attempted to analyse the effects of oil pollution, in particular to identify those areas that are the most vulnerable. Although several studies have considered both environmental and socioeconomic issues, most of them have focused only on environmental vulnerability. The aim of our research is to formalise an alternative approach to map global vulnerability, using both environmental and socioeconomic factors. This article describes and discusses the methodology used to identify the critical variables required to assess coastal vulnerability to oil spills. The first part introduces previous research and identifies the parameters that have been used to map this type of vulnerability. The study area is presented in the second part of the paper. The third part presents the method we used to compute a spatialised vulnerability index that is based on a multicriteria analysis including both environmental and socioeconomic parameters. The final part of this paper describes and discusses the results of the implementation of this method on Noirmoutier Island located off the west coast of France. The resulting synthetic mapping for risk monitoring, carried out using a geographical information system, seems to be a relevant and useful complementary tool to improve the management of oil spill crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The CAMCAT oil spill forecasting system is presented in this paper, and an evaluation of the impact of errors in the forcing fields over its forecasts is carried out. The system is formed by several independent modules which provide forecasts of winds, currents and waves to an oil spill module which predicts the evolution of the spill. The typical twin-experiments experience is used paying special attention to a realistic characterization of the errors when perturbing the forcing fields. The results suggest that errors in the wind and current fields are the main limiting factor for the quality of the oil spill forecasts. The pollutant identification is also crucial to determine the final vertical position and characteristics of the product. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Oil spill pollution, a severe environmental problem, which persists in marine environment or in inland water across the world, has grown to an alarming magnitude with increased levels of oil production and transport. The causes of oil pollution are categorized as either accidental or operational, wherever oil is produced, transported, stored, and used on the surface of sea or land. Hence, it is almost impossible for marine life to be free from the adverse affects of oil spill, though the discharge of oil is controlled by an international convention. Prime concern for the health of marine life has created an instinct for undertaking this study by the authors. Objectives of the present work include testing of four different local materials in separating oil from water having different oil concentrations, and their efficiency of removal. The work also focuses on effect of time of contact and dosage of materials used for oil removal. Corchorus depressus locally available has proved to be more effective when compared to other materials utilized in addressing oil-spill related problems. At the same time its byproducts do not give rise to unwanted hazards to marine life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine pollution has many different sources. This study focuses on oil spills that may occur after a ship collision or during oil extraction and other oil tanker activities. The most critical oil spill accidents are presented, followed by the regulatory framework on maritime oil spill management. Among the measures taken towards the protection of the marine and coastal environment from oil pollution are floating booms and barriers, oil collecting materials and vessels, absorbent materials, chemical dispersants, other chemicals, physical degradation, biodegradation, on-site oil burning. These measures may assist coastal facilities and local authorities in their strategic development of oil spill mitigation planning and response towards coastal and marine protection from oil spills. In the present paper, the aim is to rank the approaches of dealing with the oil spill by means of a multicriteria method. The theoretical background of the selected multicriteria method, called PROMETHEE, is briefly presented; necessary to understand the ranking of the treatment approaches as well as the subsequent findings of the possible criteria for the analysis. Almost all of the scenarios evaluated rank floating booms and barriers as the most suitable methods to deal with oil spill containment, followed by oil collecting materials and vessels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNO has estimated fresh water deficit as 230 billion m3/y by the end of 21 st century. It has been reported that about 10,000 people die every day and thousands suffer from scarcity of fresh water, as it has become one of the most critical problems in our planet. Desalination is an ideal solution for many regions like GCC, which suffer from non-availability of fresh water. Oil spill pollution — a severe environmental problem, which has a considerable effect on desalination of seawater across the world, has grown to an alarming magnitude with increased levels of oil production and transport. Causes of it are either accidental or due to operation wherever oil is produced, transported, stored and used on sea or land. GCC depend primarily on desalination of seawater for catering to the needs of basic water requirement. Removal of oil pollution from seawater prior to its desalination helps in saving time and cost thus improving the quality of useable water. Objectives of the present work include testing of four different materials in separating oil from water having different oil concentrations along with its efficiency of removal. The work focuses on the effect of time of contact and dosage of materials used for oil removal. Locally available Corchorus depressus has proved to be more effective in addressing this problem, and at the same time its byproduct does not give rise to unwanted hazard to the marine life. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]