A model for oil spill scenarios from tanker collision accidents in the Northern Baltic Sea

Oil spills from maritime activities can lead to very extensive damages 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 that especially collisions may lead to extensive oil spills. 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 which 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 as a function of 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.