European Atlantic: the hottest oil spill hotspot worldwide

Abstract

Oil spills caused by maritime transport of petroleum products are still an important source of ocean pollution, especially in main production areas and along major transport routes. We here provide a historical and geographic analysis of the major oil spills (>700 t) since 1960. Spills were recorded from several key marine ecosystems and marine biodiversity hotspots. The past four decades have been characterized by an overall decrease in the number of accidents and tones of oil spilled in the sea, but this trend was less distinct in the European Atlantic area. Recent black tides from the Erika and Prestige vessels provided new evidence for the high risk of accidents with serious ecological impact in this area, which according to our analysis is historically the most important oil spill hotspot worldwide. The English Channel and waters around Galicia in Spain were the areas with most accidents. Maritime transport in European Atlantic waters has been predicted to continue increasing. Together with our own results this suggests that, in addition to measures for increased traffic safety, deployment of emergency capacities in the spill hotspot areas may be crucial for a sustainable conservation of sea resources and ecosystems.

In-depth analysis of accidental oil spills from tankers in the context of global spill trends from all sources

“…Very large spills are viewed as the most visible and dramatic causes of marine and coastal pollution as can be seen from their often exceptional media presence [13]. However, previous studies in many cases focused on particular aspects of oil spills such as the amount spilled and distributional trends (e.g., [14]), ecological consequences (e.g., [15,16]), economic costs of pollution (e.g., [5,17,18]), cleanup techniques (e.g., [19]) or examined specific geographical areas (e.g., [20,21]). …”

Floating boom performance under waves and currents

“…In spite of the safety enhancement measures recently implemented in oil transport by sea and the observed decrease both in the number of accidents and volume of oil spilled worldwide since 1970 [1,2], oil spills still constitute a significant risk. It is therefore not surprising that oil spill modelling is the subject of intensive research efforts (e.g.…”

Robotic swarm concept for efficient oil spill confrontation

“…Birds, sea mammals, fish and several marine invertebrate species are among the groups most impacted, and in some cases the whole food chain is affected [2]. Oil spills can negatively influence the physiology, immunology, and development of some organisms, but their most evident effect is usually an important decrease or disappearance of populations of marine fauna and flora within the affected area.…”