Ten years after the enactment of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990: a success or a failure

In response to the Exxon Valdez incident, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was enacted as allegedly comprehensive oil pollution legislation. There have been changes in the patterns of oil spills and the strategic response to the Act. The number and volume of oil spills from tank vessels in US waters have fallen considerably without an obvious increase in oil prices since the enactment of the Act. This implies that the Act has successfully served its purpose. The Act may also facilitate the development of other oil pollution regimes including the international regime beyond the US. However, it remains to be seen whether the reduction of oil spills in US waters will be sustained in the future. There is an irreducible risk irrespective of any policy controlling oil pollution risks. The assertion that the Act has been effective in deterring oil spills may be counteracted by statistics demonstrating that the number and quantity of oil spills have also declined worldwide since 1990. It is premature to evaluate the performance of the Act because it has not so far been tested by a major oil spill since its enactment. A major oil spill in US waters in the future would illuminate limitation of the Act and lead to a fundamental reconsideration of the structure of the Act.     

Oil-Spill Monitoring in the Coastal Waters of Hong Kong and Vicinity

In this study, we applied the edge-detection method of oil-spill monitoring to extract oil-spill features observed by the ENVISAT Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) images over the coastal waters of Hong Kong and vicinity in northern South China Sea. Two examples in 2007 and 2008 over the coastal waters of the study area show that oil spills can be successfully detected by ASAR images at wind speeds around 4～ 6 m/s independent of wind direction. The study also shows that it could be helpful for evaluating the potential impacts of oil spills on the coastal environment in Hong Kong and vicinity.     

Metabolic conversion of cyclohexane by Pacific salmon microsomal preparations

Hydrocarbons are being introduced into the marine environment from a variety of sources including combustion processes, crude oil spills, fuel oil spills, and controlled disposal such as processed ballast water. Even in the relatively clean waters of Alaska hydrocarbons are being released at an alarming rate. The purpose of this study was to determine the optimum conditions for the metabolism of a representative hydrocarbon by Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch liver microsomes. The product of cyclohexane metabolism in the salmon microsomal system was identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry as cyclohexanol. Conditions of the microsome incubation were varied systematically to determine the optimum temperature, pH, and ionic strength for cyclohexanol production. Cyclohexanol was quantified by capillary column gas chromatography. Maximum cyclohexanol formation was achieved at 20°C, a pH of 8·0–8·5 and an ionic strength of 0·026. A linear rate of cyclohexanol formation is seen from 0–60 min of incubation and there is an apparent decrease in the rate from 60–90 min. Poor stability of the microsomal preparation from the species studied was also identified and several stability studies have been undertaken using cyclohexane metabolism as a monitor.     

基于MODIS与HJ-1多源卫星的上海海域溢油事故诊断

随着上海港海上运输业和石油产业链的日趋发达,海上溢油事故风险也随之加剧。本文就2012年发生在上海海域吴淞口和九段沙附近的2起重大溢油事故,基于美国NASA(National Aeronautics and Space Administration)中等分辨率MODIS(Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer)与国产"环境一号"卫星HJ-1的多源卫星数据,对溢油信息进行对比,通过对油水敏感通道进行波段比值运算,突出油膜与背景海水的光谱反射率差异,再结合重柴油光谱特征,利用图像分割的阈值确定法,从疑似溢油区域中有效提取溢油信息,实现溢油区域定位、溢油面积和溢油量的诊断,为事发后海域应急响应工作提供基础性分析依据。     

Oil spill fishery impact assessment model: Sensitivity to spill location and timing

An oil spill fishery impact assessment model system has been applied to the Georges Bank-Gulf of Maine region to assess the sensitivity of probable impact on several key fisheries to spill location and timing. Simulations of the impact on the fishery of tanker spills (20 million gallons released over 5 days), at two separate locations for each season of the year, and blowout spills (68 million gallons released over 30 days) at one location, with monthly releases and at six other locations with seasonal spills have been studied. Atlantic cod has been employed as the principal fish species throughout the simulations. Impacts on Atlantic herring and haddock have also been investigated for selected cases. All spill sites are located on Georges Bank with the majority in the general region of OCS leasing activity.The results of these simulations suggest a complex interaction among spill location and timing, the spatial and temporal distribution of spawning, the population dynamics of the species under study, and the hydrodynamics of the area. For the species studied, spills occurring during the winter and spring have the largest impact with cod being the most heavily impacted followed by haddock and herring. In all cases, the maximum cumulative loss to the fishery of a one time spill event never exceeded 25% of the annual catch with the exact value depending on the number of ichthyoplankton impacted by the spill and the compensatory dynamics of the population.     

Oil-spill fishery impact assessment model: Application to selected Georges Bank fish species

An oil-spill fishery impact assessment model composed of an oil-spill fates model, a shelf hydrodynamics model, an ichthyoplankton transport and fate model, and a fishery population model originally developed by Reed & Spaulding, has been improved and applied to the Georges Bank-Gulf of Maine region to assess the probable impact of oil spills on several key fisheries. The model addresses direct impacts of oil on the commercial fishery through hydrocarbon-induced egg and larval mortality. This early life stage hydrocarbon-induced mortality is estimated by assuming a toxicity threshold approach and by mapping the spatial/temporal interaction between the subsurface oil concentrations caused by the spill and the developing eggs and larvae. Model output is given in terms of differential catch, with a comparison made of hydrocarbon-impacted fisheries.Simulations of tanker and blowout spills at two separate locations for each season of the year in the Outer Continental Shelf lease areas have been completed for Atlantic herring, haddock, and Atlantic cod. Results to date suggest a complex interaction among spill location and timing, the spatial and temporal spawning distribution of the species, and the hydrodynamics of the area. The largest impacts occur for spring and winter spills.     

海洋溢油生态损害的简易评估和综合评估方法

通过对海洋生态系统服务的讨论,结合生态学及经济学的评估方法,提出对不同规模溢油事故的区别性评估方法体系:简易评估和综合评估.中小型溢油选用公式化的简易评估法,大型溢油污染事故则建议从生物资源、海洋生境、环境容量、景观文化开展综合评估,并分别提出相应的评估方法.简易评估在美国佛罗里达公式的基础上,进行了适于我国国情的修改,该方法对信息量的要求小,简单易行,其推算的赔偿范围符合以往的索赔案例,可在今后的中小型溢油中推广实践并不断完善.综合评估中,对生物资源的评估,实现了非经济物种的价值化;生境价值评估采用在我国鲜有应用的生境等价分析;环境容量评估是我国海洋生态损害评估研究相对较多的内容,在价值化时结合已有的环境规划项目,可使其在相关索赔中更为合理.景观文化是在以往案例中很少被考虑的非使用价值,随着生态损害评估方法体系的不断完善,应在今后的实践中得以有效合理的赔偿.     

Detection of oil spill based on CBF-CNN using HY-1C CZI multispectral images

Accurate detection of an oil spill is of great significance for rapid response to oil spill accidents. Multispectral images have the advantages of high spatial resolution, short revisit period, and wide imaging width, which is suitable for large-scale oil spill monitoring. However, in wide remote sensing images, the number of oil spill samples is generally far less than that of seawater samples. Moreover, the sea surface state tends to be heterogeneous over a large area, which makes the identification of oil spills more difficult because of various sea conditions and sunglint. To address this problem, we used the F-Score as a measure of the distance between forecast value and true value, proposed the Class-Balanced F loss function (CBF loss function) that comprehensively considers the precision and recall, and rebalances the loss according to the actual sample numbers of various classes. Using the CBF loss function, we constructed convolution neural networks (CBF-CNN) for oil spill detection. Based on the image acquired by the Coastal Zone Imager (CZI) of the Haiyang-1C (HY-1C) satellite in the Andaman Sea (study area 1), we carried out parameter adjustment experiments. In contrast to experiments of different loss functions, the F1-Score of the detection result of oil emulsions is 0.87, which is 0.03–0.07 higher than cross-entropy, hinge, and focal loss functions, and the F1-Score of the detection result of oil slicks is 0.94, which is 0.01–0.09 higher than those three loss functions. In comparison with the experiment of different methods, the F1-Score of CBF-CNN for the detection result of oil emulsions is 0.05–0.12 higher than that of the deep neural networks, supports vector machine and random forests models, and the F1-Score of the detection result of oil slicks is 0.15–0.22 higher than that of the three methods. To verify the applicability of the CBF-CNN model in different observation scenes, we used the image obtained by HY-1C CZI in the Karimata Strait to carry out experiments, which include two studies areas (study area 2 and study area 3). The experimental results show that the F1-Score of CBF-CNN for the detection result of oil emulsions is 0.88, which is 0.16–0.24 higher than that of other methods, and the F1-Score of the detection result of oil slicks is 0.96–0.97, which is 0.06–0.23 higher than that of other methods. Based on all the above experiments, we come to the conclusions that the CBF loss function can restrain the influence of oil spill and seawater sample imbalance on oil spill detection of CNN model thus improving the detection accuracy of oil spills, and our CBF-CNN model is suitable for the detection of oil spills in an area with weak sunglint and can be applied to different scenarios of CZI images.     

一种基于经验模态分解的SAR图像溢油识别算法

溢油事件的发生会给海洋环境的保护和经济发展带来巨大的影响。运用现代化的监测手段和技术进行监测,及时发现溢油现象和违规行为,保护海洋环境是非常重要的。合成孔径雷达（SAR）技术是溢油检测的有效工具,在SAR图像中溢油表现为黑色的区域,但是黑色区域也可能会由其他的因素引起。本文提出了一种基于二维经验模态分解（BEMD）的方法来识别溢油和疑似溢油。首先通过BEMD方法将感兴趣的区域分解为局部窄带的各分量—内蕴模函数（BIMF）之和,并对分解后得到的各分量IMF进行Hilbert变换,通过Hibert谱分析得到64维的特征空间,然后使用Relief方法得到5个特征向量,最后利用马氏距离分类器进行分类。通过实验结果表明,该方法能够有效、准确地检测出溢油,准确率超过90%。     

辽东湾近岸海域油污染生态风险评价研究

以2014–2015年海洋调查数据为基础,Arc GIS软件为平台,通过选取致灾因子危险性、承灾体脆弱性相关影响因子,基于灾害理论和层次分析法构建了辽东湾近岸海域油污染生态风险评价指标体系、评价模型及评价标准,将致灾因子危险性等级和承灾体脆弱性等级进行叠加,从而实现对研究海域油污染生态风险进行综合评价,并对该海域溢油风险可能导致的环境影响进行了系统分析、诊断和综合评价。结果表明:辽东湾近岸海域风险处于较高风险,应加强对环境敏感区域的保护,并完善环境监测体系。本文同时为重要湿地生态敏感区合理配置溢油应急资源和实施风险决策提供技术支撑,也为目前事故后的危机管理到预防性风险管理的转变提供理论依据。     

Summer distribution of the pelagic copepod Centropages aucklandkus in New Zealand waters

The quantitative distribution of Centropages aucklandicus in summer is described. This coastal species, endemic to New Zealand, is found round the whole country except in the north. It has a northern limit coincident with the 19°c isotherm. Possible factors operating to conserve C. aucklandicus in coastal waters, temperature, salinity, food and behaviour, are discussed.     

福建三沙湾网箱养殖对多毛纲动物群落结构的影响

利用东海近海典型网箱养殖海湾三沙湾9个航次数据,基于群落结构时空差异,阐释网箱养殖活动对多毛纲(Polychaeta)动物群落的影响。就群落组成而言,网箱养殖和非网箱养殖水域多毛纲物种组成存在差异,丝鳃虫科(Cirratulidae)和多鳞虫科(Polynoidae)分别是两种水域最占优势的类群;网箱养殖水域多毛纲优势物种的丰度及丰度比值略高于非网箱养殖区(104.06ind./m248.29ind./m2,57.59%46.96%)。双因素方差分析(采样时间和养殖方式)结果表明,两种因素对物种数(S)、丰度(N)、生物量(B)、Shannon-Wiener多样性指数(H′)、Pielou均匀度指数(J′)、Margalef丰富度指数(d)等典型群落参数的交互作用不显著(P0.05);考虑两种因素独立效应时,群落参数均无显著空间差异(P0.05),但存在极显著时间差异(P0.01)。双因素群落结构相似性分析(two-way ANOSIM analysis)表明群落结构无显著空间差异(P0.05),但存在极显著时间差异(P0.01)。典型对应分析(canonical correspondence analysis,CCA)显示pH、水深和溶解氧是影响三沙湾多毛纲动物分布格局的主要环境因子。上述结论显示,三沙湾网箱养殖活动对多毛纲动物群落结构已产生一定影响,主要表现在群落组成方面,群落结构和部分典型底栖环境因子具较强相关性。     

Recovery of polluted ecosystems: the case for long-term studies

Recovery of marine ecosystems from pollution has tended to receive less attention than the study of new or continuing impacts, but such studies are important in charting recovery from acute incidents and following legislation to deal with chronic contamination. Recovery is inevitably a long-term process, and where such studies have been made they are often too short-lived. Interest quickly wanes following an acute incident and governmental bodies rapidly switch to new legislative priorities for chronic inputs. We review three case studies: recovery of dogwhelk populations after local extinction by tributyl tin leachates from anti-fouling paints; recovery of rocky shore communities from oil spills; and recovery of estuarine ecosystems from industrial and urban development. We then make some generalisations about recovery processes before making a plea for long-term studies of polluted areas.     

Effect of a simulated oil spill on natural assemblages of marine phytoplankton enclosed in microcosms

Two microcosm experiments were carried out to simulate the effect of sporadic oil spills derived from tanker accidents on oceanic and coastal marine phytoplankton assemblages. Treatments were designed to reproduce the spill from the Prestige, which took place in Galician coastal waters (NW Iberia) in November 2002. Two different concentrations of the water soluble fraction of oil were used: low (8.6 ± 0.7 μg l⁻¹ of chrysene equivalents) and high (23 ± 5 μg l⁻¹ of chrysene equivalents l⁻¹). Photosynthetic activity and chlorophyll a concentration decreased in both assemblages after 24–72 h of exposure to the two oil concentrations, even though the effect was more severe on the oceanic assemblage. These variables progressively recovered up to values close or higher than those in the controls, but the short-term negative effect of oil, which was generally stronger at the high concentration, also induced changes in the structure of the plankton community. While the biomass of nanoflagellates increased in both assemblages, oceanic picophytoplankton was drastically reduced by the addition of oil. Effects on diatoms were also observed, particularly in the coastal assemblage. The response of coastal diatoms to oil addition showed a clear dependence on size. Small diatoms (<20 μm) were apparently stimulated by oil, whereas diatoms >20 μm were only negatively affected by the high oil concentration. These differences, which could be partially due to indirect trophic interactions, might also be related to different sensitivity of species to PAHs. These results, in agreement with previous observations, additionally show that the negative effect of the water soluble fraction of oil on oceanic phytoplankton was stronger than on coastal phytoplankton.     

Comparison of Chlorophyll a Concentrations Obtained with 90% Acetone and N,N-dimethylformamide Extraction in Coastal Seawater

Determinations of Chlorophyll a (Chl a) in eutrophic coastal marine waters were compared using N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and 90% acetone techniques. Measured Chl a concentrations ranged from 0.89 to 10.65 μg l₋₁ for 90% acetone extracts and from 0.97 to 12.92 μg l⁻¹ for DMF extracts, respectively, for 24 surface water samples from the Harima-nada, Seto Inland Sea, Japan. Chl a concentrations using DMF as a solvent were consistently higher than those found using 90% acetone (p < 0.001, n= 24). Chl a is thus likely to be underestimated (by 13%) when 90% acetone is used for eutrophic waters. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A multi-model study of the restratification phase in an idealized convection basin

The representation of baroclinic instability in numerical models depends strongly upon the model physics and significant differences may be found depending on the vertical discretization of the governing dynamical equations. This dependency is explored in the context of the restratification of an idealized convective basin with no external forcing. A comparison is made between an isopycnic model including a mixed layer (the Miami Isopycnic Coordinate Ocean Model, MICOM), its adiabatic version (MICOM-ADIAB) in which the mixed layer physics are removed and the convective layer is described by a deep adiabatic layer outcropping at the surface instead of a thick dense mixed layer, and a z-coordinate model (OPA model).In the absence of a buoyancy source at the surface, the mixed layer geometry in MICOM prevents almost any retreat of this layer. As a result, lateral heat exchanges in the upper layers are limited while mass transfers across the outer boundary of the deep convective mixed layer result in an unrealistic outward spreading of this layer. Such a widespread deep mixed layer maintains a low level of baroclinic instability, and therefore limits lateral heat exchanges in the upper layers over most of the model domain. The behavior of the adiabatic isopycnic model and z-coordinate model is by far more satisfactory although contrasted features can be observed between the two simulations. In MICOM-ADIAB, the more baroclinic dynamics introduce a stronger contrast between the surface and the dense waters in the eddy kinetic energy and heat flux distributions. Better preservation of the density contrasts around the dense water patch maintains more persistent baroclinic instability, essentially associated with the process of dense water spreading. The OPA simulation shows a faster growth of the eddy kinetic energy in the early stages of the restratification which is attributed to more efficient baroclinic instability and leads to the most rapid buoyancy restoring in the convective area among the three simulations. Dense water spreading and warm surface capping occur on fairly similar time scales in MICOM-ADIAB although the former is more persistent that the latter. In this model, heat is mainly transported by anticyclonic eddies in the dense layer while both cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies are involved in the upper layers. In OPA, heat is mainly brought into the convective zone through the export of cold water trapped in cyclonic eddies with a strong barotropic structure. Probably the most interesting difference between the z-coordinate and the adiabatic isopycnic model is found in the temperature distribution ultimately produced by the restratification process. OPA generates a spurious volume of intermediate water which is not seen in MICOM-ADIAB where the volume of the dense water is preserved.     

青岛高新区人工水系污染成因及其影响因素

景观水体中经常存在水体变色、散发异味等环境恶化现象。本研究以青岛高新区人工水系的污染问题为例,通过卫星图片解析、现场调查、模拟计算等手段,探讨了此类湖库型景观水体的污染成因及其影响因素。结果表明,水体中N、P营养盐负荷超标,是该水系主要污染因子;由于营养盐比例失衡,耐受性强的浮游藻类大规模增殖,在人工水系中,主要优势种绿藻小球藻的优势度高达0.984,藻细胞密度最高达9.83×109cells/L,导致水体出现黑臭现象。通过模型估算人工水系主要污染因子的环境容量与陆源污染通量,结果表明来自陆源的TN载荷为环境容量的5.22倍,TP载荷为环境容量的2.55倍,陆源输入是此类景观水体污染形成的主要原因;对人工水系典型水体主要环境因子浓度梯度的垂直变化分析表明,此类水体存在可能的内源污染。     

The effects of the M/V Sea Prince accident on maritime safety management in Korea

The Sea Prince accident was the first VLCC accident in Korea and a shock to the general public and government. Before the accident, any oil-spill management plan, such as National contingency plan (NCP) and regional contingency plans (RCPs), was not available and the resources for oil spills were lacking for the Sea Prince accident. About 5000 tons of oil spilled, polluting large areas of southern coastal waters, damaging the fisheries, including aquaculture. After the Sea Prince accident, Korea's government established various alternatives for dealing with oil spills, such as the NCP, RCPs, Typhoon Refuge Management Plan, and resources for oil-spill response. However, port safety management in emergency situations such as typhoons has not been solved.     

Numerical and experimental study on seakeeping performance of ship in finite water depth

Vessels operating in shallow waters require careful observation of the finite-depth effect. In present study, a Rankine source method that includes the shallow water effect and double body steady flow effect is developed in frequency domain. In order to verify present numerical methods, two experiments were carried out respectively to measure the wave loads and free motions for ship advancing with forward speed in head regular waves. Numerical results are systematically compared with experiments and other solutions using the double body basis flow approach, the Neumann-Kelvin approach with simplified m-terms, and linearized free surface boundary conditions with double-body m-terms. Furthermore, the influence of water depths on added mass and damping coefficients, wave excitation forces, motions and unsteady wave patterns are deeply investigated. It is found that finite-depth effect is important and unsteady wave pattern in shallow water is dependent on both of the Brard number τ and depth Froude number F_h.