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

Abstract

Preparedness for oil spill response is a challenge for many coastal countries. Responders are unable to take effective action unless maps that indicate areas with different vulnerability to oil pollution are available. Such maps, developed in many countries, are usually based on calculations with rank (ordinal) values. However, arithmetic operations with them cannot be allowed. The article describes a method of constructing maps using metric values. The calculations take into account the biomass and the quantity of important biota components, especially significant socio-economic objects and protected areas. The biota distribution densities are represented in the identical units. The vulnerability factors are assessed based on the potential impact of spilled oil on biota, as well as its sensitivity and recoverability after disturbance. The proposed method takes into account the different sensitivity of biota inhabiting in the water column and on the sea surface. Oil vulnerability maps for Kola Bay using the proposed algorithm are presented.

Ecological Vulnerability of Tourism Scenic Spots: Based on Remote Sensing Ecological Index

“…With the increasing concerns on the global environmental change, ecological fragile belts and ecological vulnerability and its impact factors have become global research topics [2,3]. Ecological vulnerability assessments and spatial correlations reveal the spatial and temporal characteristics of regional ecological vulnerability and have important practical significance for ecological and environmental protection, rational use of resources, and sustainable development [2,4]. Therefore, ecological vulnerability has become one of the most important topics in the study of global environmental change and sustainable development [5,6].…”

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

“…When calculating the estimates of the impact of oil spills or offshore wind turbines on avifauna, various specialists often use both values measured on metric (quantitative) scales and those measured on other scales, including ordinal (rank) quantities. When constructing vulnerability maps of coastal-marine zones (taking into account the impact of oil on the avifauna), ordinal quantities (ranks, scores) are used in numerous works [5,6,[14][15][16][17][18]. Publications devoted to the effect of wind farms on birds, have followed a similar rank-based approach [7][8][9][10][11][12]19].…”

“…); 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].…”

“…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]. Now, we focus, based on the provisions of measurement theory, on the assessment of earlier studies of birds' vulnerability to oil [33][34][35][36][37], and briefly assess the development of vulnerability maps [14].…”

“…In this case, it is necessary to take into account the type of data scale, since, even on some metric scales, not all arithmetic operations are permissible. One of the possible options for such an approach for calculating oil vulnerability maps, based strictly on metric values, is described in [32]. All issues raised in our article relate to the calculations of seabirds' vulnerability, which has implications for the development of oil vulnerability maps in any sea region.…”