Coastal Hazards from Oil Spills
The transport and utilization of petroleum and its derivatives presents a spill risk in coastal areas. Not only do spills affect coastal and nearshore biota, but can cause severe economic costs due to closure of fisheries areas as well as direct losses du
- PDF / 880,672 Bytes
- 28 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 56 Downloads / 230 Views
Coastal Hazards from Oil Spills Erich R. Gundlach
Abstract The transport and utilization of petroleum and its derivatives presents a spill risk in coastal areas. Not only do spills affect coastal and nearshore biota, but can cause severe economic costs due to closure of fisheries areas as well as direct losses due to business disruption. In most countries, compensation is available to assist those damaged by a spill. Often overlooked, spills can also affect the social well-being and health of both residents of the spill area and to workers brought in to assist cleanup. After spill prevention, adequate spill response planning is the best method to reduce potential damages to the ecosystem and to coastal residents.
25.1
Introduction
This chapter examines the risks and potential hazards of oil spills in marine, estuarine, riverine and lacustrine (lake) environments, generically referred to as ‘coastal’. First is a review of the likelihood of a coastal spill and a description of factors that influence the potential for shoreline oiling based on spill movement and oil weathering. Once on the shoreline, oil interactions and cleanup requirements are highly influenced by the geomorphology of the affected coastline. Shoreline biota as well as coastal aquaculture facilities and fisheries are all likely to be affected. Coastal oil spills have serious economic, social and health effects on the local population living in the area, and on workers called in to assist the cleanup and recovery operations. Oil spill compensation programs are important to aid the economic recovery of those affected by a spill. The chapter concludes with the principal elements of an oil spill response (contingency) plan which aims to reduce both the risks of a spill as well as its associated hazards.
E.R. Gundlach (*) E-Tech International Inc., 15 River Park Drive, New Paltz, NY 12561, USA e-mail: [email protected] C.W. Finkl (ed.), Coastal Hazards, Coastal Research Library 6, 781 DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5234-4_25, # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
782
E.R. Gundlach
The oil spill literature commonly contains both volume and weight units, principally using metric tonnes, cubic meters (m3), barrels (bbl) and gallons (gal). The exact conversion depends upon the specific gravity of the oil. The specific gravity of light oils is ~0.75 and approaches 1.0 for heavy oils. After weathering, oil may reach greater than 1.0 and potentially sink. Common conversions are shown below: • 1 tonne (1,000 kg) ¼ 7 barrels (bbl) ¼ 294 U.S. gallons (gal). • 1 tonne ¼ 1,000 m3 (Specific Gravity ¼ 1.0). • 1 barrel (bbl) ¼ 42 U.S. gallons (gal). The size and location of most oil spill events are catalogued by several major international organizations involved with oil spill response, including NOAA (http://archive.orr.noaa.gov; www.incidentnews.gov), ITOPF (http://www.itopf. com/) and CEDRE (http://www.cedre.fr/index-en.php), as well as other sources (e.g., www.Wikipedia.org). The amount of oil spilled may differ among these sources due to several factors.
Data Loading...
