Main Development Problems of Vulnerability Mapping of Sea-Coastal Zones to Oil Spills

Abstract

Vulnerability mapping of sea-coastal zones is an important element of oil spill response plans, environmental support for offshore projects, and the integrated management of the marine environment. The creation of such maps is a complex scientific problem. In their development, it is necessary to take into account differences in the nature of biotic and abiotic components existing in the cartographic area, dissimilarities in their relative vulnerability and significance, the seasonal variability of ecosystem components, and other factors. The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the main elements of international and Russian methods of mapping the vulnerability of sea-coastal zones to oil spills, and the development problems of such maps, including problems of using rank (ordinal) values, and to note possible solutions. Based on the analysis of key existing international and Russian approaches to vulnerability mapping, it was concluded that almost all methods of map calculations use rank (ordinal) values. However, arithmetic operations cannot be performed with them, as they lead to incorrect results. The paper shortly describes the main problems of mapping the vulnerability of sea-coastal zones to oil (the choice of the map scales and season limits for them, differences in the units of biota abundance, the calculation of relative vulnerability coefficients for the considered biotic components, the summation of the vulnerability of objects of different types, etc.). For some problems, possible solutions are outlined.

Aspects for Priority Protection Assessment of Abiotic Components to Oil Exposure

“…However, the key issues related to the vulnerability factors of biota and abiotic components were not worked out at the proper BRDEM-2019 level. In the world practice of developing vulnerability maps, the same problem is observed, the parameters are used in relative units (points, ranks), [4]. Further, if the arithmetic operations are carried out with ranking values, which is unacceptable [5--7], the final maps will not represent the correct result.…”

The Issue of Using Ordinal Quantities to Estimate the Vulnerability of Seabirds to Oil Spills

“…); more details are provided in Appendices A-C. Earlier we have used basic provisions of this theory to analyze application of ordinal quantities in calculations of vulnerability of biota and sea-coastal zones to oil [28][29][30][31][32]. Briefly, general approaches to operations on different scales have been previously described in [29].…”

“…Briefly, general approaches to operations on different scales have been previously described in [29]. In [30], vulnerability map development of sea-coastal zones to oil were assessed considering only unacceptability of arithmetic operations with ordinal quantities. The method of vulnerability assessment of some biota groups and development of vulnerability maps to oil based on metric approach are given in [28,31,32].…”

Mapping of Ecological Vulnerability of Sea-Coastal Zones to Oil Spills: A Preliminary Method Applied to Kola Bay, the Barents Sea

“…Integrated vulnerability of the water area (water surface, water column, sea bottom) is determined by the sum of the IBC vulnerability and the priority of ESO and PA protection [20,32,36].…”