Goerlandt, Floris
(Scientific Journals Maritime University of Szczecin, Zeszyty Naukowe Akademia Morska w Szczecinie,
)
Oil spills from maritime activities can lead to very extensive damage to the marine environment and disrupt
maritime ecosystem services. Shipping is an important activity in the Northern Baltic Sea, and with the complex
and dynamic ice conditions present in this sea area, navigational accidents occur rather frequently. Recent risk
analysis results indicate those oil spills are particularly likely in the event of collisions. In Finnish sea areas, the
current wintertime response preparedness is designed to a level of 5000 tonnes of oil, whereas a state-of-the-art
risk analysis conservatively estimates that spills up to 15000 tonnes are possible. Hence, there is a need to more
accurately estimate oil spill scenarios in the Northern Baltic Sea, to assist the relevant authorities in planning
the response fleet organization and its operations. An issue that has not received prior consideration in maritime
waterway oil spill analysis is the dynamics of the oil outflow, i.e. how the oil outflow extent depends on time.
Hence, this paper focuses on time-dependent oil spill scenarios from collision accidents possibly occurring to
tankers operating in the Northern Baltic Sea. To estimate these, a Bayesian Network model is developed, integrating
information about designs of typical tankers operating in this area, information about possible damage
scenarios in collision accidents, and a state-of-the-art time-domain oil outflow model. The resulting model
efficiently provides information about the possible amounts of oil spilled in the sea in different periods of time,
thus contributing to enhanced oil spill risk assessment and response preparedness planning.