Spatial and temporal assessment of oil spills in the Mediterranean Sea

Semion Polinov; Revital Bookman; Noam Levin

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112338

Spatial and temporal assessment of oil spills in the Mediterranean Sea

Mar Pollut Bull. 2021 Jun:167:112338. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112338. Epub 2021 Apr 30.

Authors

Semion Polinov¹, Revital Bookman², Noam Levin³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Marine Geosciences, Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel; The Chaikin Chair for Geostrategy and Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel. Electronic address: semion.polinov@gmail.com.
² Department of Marine Geosciences, Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel. Electronic address: rbookman@univ.haifa.ac.il.
³ Department of Geography, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus Campus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel; Remote Sensing Research Center, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia. Electronic address: noamlevin@mail.huji.ac.il.

PMID: 33940431
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112338

Abstract

Ship-generated oil pollution is a significant threat to the Mediterranean Sea. We present a geostatistical analysis of oil spills using three databases for the Mediterranean Sea: REMPEC (1977-2000) with 385 spills (17/year), ITOPF (1970-2018) with 167 spills (3.5/year) and EMSA (2015-2017) with 2066 detections (688/year). It was found that 88% of spills reported by REMPEC occurred near coastline areas, while 65% of the spills detected by EMSA occurred within a range of 22-100 km from the coastline. At the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) level, EMSA oil spills densities were positively correlated with shipping and port activity. We conclude that there is a need to develop an open-access database of oil spills that will be based on both reports and remote sensing acquisition methods. Such a database will facilitate more efficient enforcement of international conventions in offshore areas and will increase the likelihood of effective response.

Keywords: Geostatistics; Mediterranean Sea; Oil pollution; Shipping; Spatial analysis.

MeSH terms

Mediterranean Sea
Petroleum Pollution*
Ships