Combining Conservation Value, Vulnerability, and Effectiveness of Mitigation Actions in Spatial Conservation Decisions: An Application to Coastal Oil Spill Combating

Abstract

Increasing oil transportation and severe oil accidents in the past have led to the development of various sensitivity maps in different countries all over the world. Often, however, the areas presented on the maps are far too large to be safeguarded with the available oil combating equipment and prioritization is required to decide which areas must be safeguarded. While oil booms can be applied to safeguard populations from a drifting oil slick, decision making on the spatial allocation of oil combating capacity is extremely difficult due to the lack of time, resources and knowledge. Since the operational decision makers usually are not ecologists, a useful decision support tool including ecological knowledge must be readily comprehensible and easy to use. We present an index-based method that can be used to make decisions concerning which populations of natural organisms should primarily be safeguarded from a floating oil slick with oil booms. The indices take into account the relative exposure, mortality and recovery potential of populations, the conservation value of species and populations, and the effectiveness of oil booms to safeguard different species. The method has been implemented in a mapping software that can be used in the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea) for operational oil combating. It could also be utilized in other similar conservation decisions where species with varying vulnerability, conservational value, and benefits received from the management actions need to be prioritized.

How to value biodiversity in environmental management?

“…(3) Expressing the potential gains and losses in terms of biodiversity. In the present example, the ecosystem components and areas to be taken into consideration could include the potential mortality of bird or seal populations, the amount of oiled shoreline and the affected flora and fauna, fish populations that may be affected by dispersed oil, and specific endangered species or populations that may be affected by the stranded oil (e.g., Ihaksi et al, 2011;Lecklin et al, 2011). Choosing valuation approaches to identify the best management decisions depends on the type of biodiversity to be analysed and the abundance and quality of available data.…”

Use of remote sensing and geographic information systems in the determination of high-risk areas regarding marine traffic in the Istanbul Strait

“…The key idea in risk assessment is to select the most convenient assumptions and methodologies that will put forth the most likely outcomes so that the decision-makers can judge the risks. In the study of Ihaksi et al (2011), the areas presented on the maps are far too large to be safeguarded with the available oil combating equipment and prioritization is required to decide on the areas that must be safeguarded. Therefore, an index-based method to be used in the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea) for operational oil combating to make decisions concerning which populations of natural organisms that should primarily be safeguarded from a floating oil slick with oil booms is developed and applied.…”

High‐Throughput Sequencing: A Roadmap Toward Community Ecology

“…More recently, Yu et al (2012) showed how the integration of traditional and HTS methods made for a rapid way to assess arthropod biodiversity, both taxonomic and phylogenetic. The ability to deploy high precision methods in a short amount of time will become instrumental to react rapidly to environmental emergencies, some of which made the news over the last 2 years (Campagna et al 2011; Ihaksi et al 2011). In the case of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, resident petroleum degrading bacteria were accounted for in the strategies implemented to deal with the crisis, stressing why a good understanding of the taxonomic and functional composition of the community can be crucial.…”