Shoreline sensitivity to oil spills, the Mediterranean coast of Israel: Assessment and analysis
Abstract This study, which was carried out during 1999–2002, deals with the identification of the environmental sensitivity of the Mediterranean coastline of Israel to marine oil spills. It includes GIS sensitivity mapping and an analysis of the environmental vulnerability of Israel's shoreline resources. The study analyses the main sources of risk for maritime accidents in the southeastern Mediterranean and develops scenarios for possible oil spills incidents, including an analysis of the priorities for protection of the various coastal ecosystems, in an event of a large spill. It describes the morphology of the coastline of Israel, as well as the main hydrographic and meteorological patterns that dominate and control the dynamics of the shorelines, and of potential major oil spills. The study also discusses the different ways in which oil spills may affect natural ecosystems and socio-economic resources along the coastline of Israel. The basic research question of the study was how different geomorphic and land-use types of the Mediterranean shoreline would be affected by large quantities of spilled oil washing ashore from the sea. The study aims at determining the relative sensitivity of different types of shoreline and ‘prioritizing’ the different types of shoreline and coastal resources to be protected following a large oil spill. The study also aims at presenting the data collected and analyzed to both the scientific and environmental communities, and to the operational national authorities responsible for oil spill preparedness and response, in a clear and useful way. One of the main conclusions of the study is that generally, the sensitivity of the Israeli Mediterranean coastline to oil spills could be considered moderate, compared with other fragile ecosystems. This is mainly because of the morphology of the sandy beaches and the high exposure of most types of beaches to energetic natural cleanup processes. Still, along the southeastern Mediterranean coastline there are ecosystems, habitats, shoreline types and coastal resources that are sensitive to oil spills.
Detection of marine oil spills from radar satellite images for the coastal ecological risk assessment.
Coastal ecosystems offer substantial support and space for the sustainable development of human society, and hence the ecological risk evaluation of coastal ecosystems is of great significance. In this article, we propose an innovative framework for evaluating coastal ecological risk by considering oil spill risk information and environmental vulnerability information. Specifically, a deep learning based marine oil spill monitoring method is presented to obtain the oil spill risk information from Sentinel-1 polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) images. The environmental vulnerability information is then obtained from biological sample data and habitat information. Finally, a weighted probability model is introduced to utilize the oil spill risk and environmental vulnerability information, to evaluate the coastal ecological risk. In the experimental part, the proposed oil spill monitoring method shows its reliability in global ocean areas, and the proposed model is adopted to evaluate the ecological risk in Jiaozhou Bay, China. The results show that the ecological situation of more than half of the areas in Jiaozhou Bay is unstable, and the areas with high risk are mainly concentrated in the ports, shipping channels, and those areas with high biodiversity. This study provides some new perspectives on ecological risk assessment for coastal ecosystems, facilitating the planning process and the actions to be taken in response to the accidents that occur in the ocean, especially oil spill accidents.
Occurrence of DDT and PCB compounds in Baltic herring and pike from the Turku archipelago
Abstract The contamination of Baltic herring and pike from six different areas of the Turku archipelago (the southwestern coast of Finland) with DDT and its metabolites DDE and DDD, and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) was studied. Herring muscle contained on average 0·38 ppm Σ DDT and 0·31 ppm PCBs on a fresh tissue basis. However, the values obtained for individual fish specimens showed large variations, depending mainly on the differences in the fat content of the fish. The range of DDT and PCB concentrations in herring from the Turku archipelago was similar to that found in herring from the Gulf of Bothnia. Pike muscle contained on average only 0·04 ppm DDT compounds and 0·05 ppm PCBs on a fresh weight basis. The results show local differences in the residue concentration of the fish. The chlorinated hydrocarbons were found to accumulate in the liver and ovary of the pike and, to a lesser degree, in the testis and kidney. In the ovary fat the Σ DDT concentration rose to 100 ppm and that of PCBs to 190 ppm.