Environmental Impact Assessment of Remediation Strategy in an Oil Spill in the Ecuadorian Amazon Region

Abstract

Past petroleum-extraction activities in Ecuador have contaminated its Amazon region. To assess the environmental impact attributed to remediation activities regarding the cleanup of these oil spills, two scenarios were studied according to Life Cycle Analysis methodology: (1) No-action, which means to leave the contamination in place without any further action and (2) Environmental remediation, where the environmental-load attributed to the remediation of the representative oil spill was studied. Results indicated that the no-action scenario presented a higher environmental impact for 12 out of the 16 environmental categories evaluated (climate change, ozone depletion, human toxicity non-cancer effects, particulate matter, ionizing radiation human health, ionizing radiation ecosystem, photochemical ozone formation, acidification, terrestrial eutrophication, marine eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, mineral, fossil and renewable resource depletion). Moreover, the no-action scenario presented a global weighted score of contamination of 5.45 points, while the remediation scenario got a score of 3.3 points, which means that the remediation decreased by 39% of the global environmental impact due to the remediation activity applied, showing the positive influence of environmental remediation to mitigate the effects attributed to the presence of pollution sources associated to the petroleum industry in the Ecuadorian Amazon region.

Bioavailability as a tool for planning bioremediation of petroleum-polluted soil

“…78% of the respondents expressed concern that the lack of statutory guidelines was hampering the application of bioavailability to the risk assessment and management of contaminated land. However, bioavailability in regulatory frameworks is still a fair limit in some countries (the Netherlands and Australia) [11,14,38].…”

Advanced bioremediation by an amalgamation of nanotechnology and modern artificial intelligence for efficient restoration of crude petroleum oil-contaminated sites: a prospective study

“…By food chain transfer of such recalcitrant components, humans also become indirect victims of crude petroleum oil pollution. Consequently, remediating the oil-polluted environment is of utmost necessity (Garcia-Villacis et al 2021 ). Several conventional remediation technologies, such as precipitation, solvent washing, electrochemical techniques, incineration, coagulation, flocculation, and adsorption, have been applied; however, such techniques release toxic products and gases that further pollute the environment (Ali et al 2020 ).…”

Bioremediation of Soil from Petroleum Contamination

“…The most common of these measures are currently classified as physical, physicochemical, chemical and biological scale of the particular spill, by the landscape and geographical zone of the spill, and by the cleanup measures available. However, many researchers note that the traditional recultivation measures used for restoration of petroleum-polluted soil ecosystems have a number of flaws; specifically, they do not always facilitate the soil and flora restoration and often do long-lasting harm to the environment [11]. Soil recultivation reduces the rates of petroleum decomposition.…”