The Shipwrecks in Greece are Going Fuzzy: A Study for the Potential of Oil Pollution from Shipwrecks in Greek Waters

Abstract

This article deals with the development and application of a risk analysis approach regarding the importance and fate of shipwrecks in Greece. In the past few decades the potential harmful effects of wrecks and the materials and substances they carry, remaining on the sea bottom, have been realized and the issue of dealing with them has arisen. The methodology used in this article consists of three steps. The first step is to develop a dedicated database of shipwrecks in Greek waters. The second step focuses on the quasi-quantitative assessment of risk for each shipwreck individually through the introduction of implemented factors that have been modeled into the structure of a hierarchical fuzzy system. The analysis is concluded by determining the sources of uncertainty for the system and implementing an appropriate analysis to determine their relative importance. Finally, geographic information system (GIS) tools are used for the visualization of data and the analysis of results in geographic terms as well as for revealing geographic patterns and relationships.

A fault tree model to assess probability of contaminant discharge from shipwrecks

“…Potentially polluting shipwrecks leaking oil or other hazardous substances have been recognized as a threat to the marine environment (Landquist et al, 2013;Michel et al, 2005;Ventikos et al, 2013). Most of the wrecks are from the Second World War and have been submerged in marine conditions for almost 70 years, implying that corrosion on iron structures could be well developed and ultimately cause leakage of e.g.…”

VRAKA—A Probabilistic Risk Assessment Method for Potentially Polluting Shipwrecks

“…Shipwrecks are recognized as a risk to the marine environment (Michel et al, 2005;NOAA, 2013;Ventikos et al, 2013) and the substantial costs associated with remediation of shipwrecks (Etkin et al, 2009) imply that it is not economically viable to take action for all wrecks. In Swedish waters only, it is estimated that 2700 wrecks pose a potential environmental threat (Larsson et al, 2011) and similar situations are reported from many parts of the world (Michel et al, 2005).…”

“…Landquist et al (2013) presents a review and comparison of the majority of these methods to, in the case of shipwrecks, relevant parts of the ISO standard for risk management (ISO, 2009). Two more methods have been described after the review by Landquist et al (2013), Ventikos et al (2013), and NOAA (2013) but we can nevertheless conclude that there are still no comprehensive methods for risk assessment and management of shipwrecks. Existing methods for risk assessment of shipwrecks fail to provide a holistic and, most importantly, probabilistic risk assessment of wrecks and thus do not provide the means for incorporating all uncertainties involved (SPREP and SOPAC, 2002;Idaas, 2005;Michel et al, 2005;Alcaro et al, 2007;Etkin et al, 2009;Louzis et al, 2009;NOAA, 2009NOAA, , 2013Ventikos et al, 2013).…”

“…Two more methods have been described after the review by Landquist et al (2013), Ventikos et al (2013), and NOAA (2013) but we can nevertheless conclude that there are still no comprehensive methods for risk assessment and management of shipwrecks. Existing methods for risk assessment of shipwrecks fail to provide a holistic and, most importantly, probabilistic risk assessment of wrecks and thus do not provide the means for incorporating all uncertainties involved (SPREP and SOPAC, 2002;Idaas, 2005;Michel et al, 2005;Alcaro et al, 2007;Etkin et al, 2009;Louzis et al, 2009;NOAA, 2009NOAA, , 2013Ventikos et al, 2013). Landquist et al (2013) found that none of the analyzed methods present a truly quantitative risk assessment and in most methods no uncertanity or sensitivity analyis was included.…”

“…Risk evaluation was not fully developed in any of the approaches. Further examination of NOAA (2013) and Ventikos et al (2013) not included in the review in Landquist et al (2013) did to some extent include uncertainty analysis and NOAA (2013) also incorporates a quantitative method for consequence assessment. However, there is no aspect of probability estimation regarding a potential discharge.…”