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    Oil Spills - Vaishnavi T

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    vaishnavi
    Oil spills occur from tankers, pipelines, and offshore drilling and have significant negative impacts on both the environment and human health. They harm wildlife through coating and ingestion, and damage sensitive shoreline habitats. Various cleanup methods are used depending on factors like shoreline type and oil properties, while spill models help plan response and assess environmental damage.

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    Oil Spills - Vaishnavi T

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    vaishnavi
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    Oil spills occur from tankers, pipelines, and offshore drilling and have significant negative impacts on both the environment and human health. They harm wildlife through coating and ingestion, and damage sensitive shoreline habitats. Various cleanup methods are used depending on factors like shoreline type and oil properties, while spill models help plan response and assess environmental damage.

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    Oil Spills- Vaishnavi T

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    Oil spills occur from tankers, pipelines, and offshore drilling and have significant negative impacts on both the environment and human health. They harm wildlife through coating and ingestion, and damage sensitive shoreline habitats. Various cleanup methods are used depending on factors like shoreline type and oil properties, while spill models help plan response and assess environmental damage.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    30 views3 pages

    Oil Spills - Vaishnavi T

    Uploaded by

    vaishnavi
    Oil spills occur from tankers, pipelines, and offshore drilling and have significant negative impacts on both the environment and human health. They harm wildlife through coating and ingestion, and damage sensitive shoreline habitats. Various cleanup methods are used depending on factors like shoreline type and oil properties, while spill models help plan response and assess environmental damage.

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    of 3

    VAISHNAVI.

    T
    191216012

    P16ES308 : ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

    Oil Spills in Oceans

    Oil Spills

    • Release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the marine ecosystem (marine or coastal
    waters), due to human activity, and is a form of pollution.
    • May be due to release of crude oil from tankers, offshore platforms, drilling rigs and wells
    and spills of refined petroleum products (such as gasoline, diesel) and their by-products,
    heavier fuels used by large ships such as bunker fuel, or the release of oil refuse or waste oil.

    Sources of oil spills

    • Oil Tankers, pipelines


    • Routine operations such as loading cargo, discharging cargo, and taking on fuel oil
    • Accidents like collisions, groundings, hull failures, and explosions

    Impacts of oil spills on humans

    • An oil spill represents an immediate fire hazard. The oil fires produes air pollution that cause
    respiratory distress.
    • Oil spills can also harm air quality. The chemicals are mostly hydrocarbons that contain toxic
    chemicals like benzenes, toluene, poly-aromatic hydrocarbon and oxygenated polycyclic
    aromatic hydrocarbons. These chemicals introduce adverse health effects when being
    inhaled into human body.
    • These chemicals can be oxidized by oxidants in the atmosphere to form fine particulate
    matter after they evaporate into the atmosphere. These particulates can penetrate lungs
    and carry toxic chemicals into the human body.
    • Burning surface oil can be a source for soot particles. During cleaning and recovery process,
    it generates air pollutants such as nitric oxides and ozone from ships.
    • Spilled oil can also contaminate drinking water supplies.
    • Contamination can have an economic impact on tourism and marine resource extraction
    industries. For example, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacted beach tourism and fishing
    along the Gulf Coast.

    Environmental effects of oil spills


    • Oil penetrates into the structure of the plumage of birds and the fur of mammals, reducing
    their insulating ability, and making them more vulnerable to temperature fluctuations and
    much less buoyant in the water.
    • Animals who rely on scent to find their babies or mothers, become helpless due to the
    strong scent of the oil. This causes a baby to be rejected and abandoned, leaving the babies
    to starve and eventually die.
    • Oil can impair a bird's ability to fly, preventing it from foraging or escaping from predators.
    As they preen, birds may ingest the oil coating their feathers, irritating the digestive tract,
    altering liver function, and causing kidney damage.
    • Some birds exposed to petroleum also experience changes in their hormonal balance,
    including changes in their luteinizing protein
    • Heavily furred marine mammals exposed to oil spills are affected in similar ways. Oil coats
    the fur of sea otters and seals, reducing its insulating effect, and leading to fluctuations
    in body temperature and hypothermia.
    • Oil can also blind an animal. The ingestion of oil causes dehydration and impairs the
    digestive process. Animals can be poisoned, and may die from oil entering the lungs or liver.

    Clean up and Recovery

    • Bioremediation
    • use of microorganisms such as Alcanivorax bacteria or Methylocella silvestris to break down or
    remove oil

    • Bioremediation Accelerator
    • Binder molecule that moves hydrocarbons into gels, when combined with nutrients and
    encourages natural bioremediation.
    • The accelerator acts as a herding agent in water, combines phenol and BTEX to the surface of
    the water, forming gel-like agglomerations.
    • By over spraying sheen with bioremediation accelerator, sheen is eliminated within minutes.
    Creates a bloom of local, indigenous, pre-existing, hydrocarbon-consuming bacteria.

    • Hydro fire boom to clean the oil by burning it.

    • Dredging: for oils dispersed with detergents and other oils denser than water

    • Skimming: Requires calm waters at all times during the process

    • Solidifying: hydrophobic polymers that both adsorb and absorb. They clean up oil spills by
    changing the physical state of spilled oil from liquid to a solid, semi-solid or a rubber-like
    material that floats on water.
    • Non-toxic to aquatic and wildlife, suppress harmful vapours of benzene, xylene and naphtha.

    Environmental Sensitivity Index


    • ESI maps are used to identify sensitive shoreline resources prior to an oil spill event
    • To set priorities for protection and plan clean up strategies.
    • By planning spill response ahead of time, the impact on the environment can be minimized
    or prevented.
    • Environmental sensitivity index maps are basically made up of information within the
    following three categories: shoreline type, and biological and human-use resources.
    Shoreline type
    • Shoreline type depends on how easily the target site would be cleaned, how long the oil
    would persist, and how sensitive the shoreline is.
    • The floating oil slicks put the shoreline at particular risk when they eventually come ashore,
    covering the substrate with oil.
    • The differing substrates between shoreline types vary in their response to oiling, and
    influence the type of clean up that will be required to effectively decontaminate the
    shoreline.
    • Mangroves and marshes tend to have higher ESI rankings due to the potentially long-lasting
    and damaging effects of both the oil contamination and clean up actions.
    • Impermeable and exposed surfaces with high wave action are ranked lower due to the
    reflecting waves keeping oil from coming onshore, and the speed at which natural processes
    will remove the oil.

    Biological resources
    • Habitats of plants and animals that may be at risk from oil spills are referred to as
    "elements" and are divided by functional group.
    • Further classification divides each element into species groups with similar life histories and
    behaviours relative to their vulnerability to oil spills.
    • There are eight element groups: Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, Fish, Invertebrates, Habitats
    and Plants, Wetlands, and Marine Mammals and Terrestrial Mammals.

    Human Resources
    • Human use resources are divided into four major groups.
    • Archaeological importance or cultural resource site, high-use recreational areas or shoreline
    access points, important protected management areas, or resource origins.
    • Examples include airports, diving sites, popular beach sites, marinas, natural reserves or
    marine sanctuaries.

    Oil Spill Models


    • Used by industries and governments to assist in planning and emergency decision making.
    • Worldwide oil spill modelling (WOSM) program: Tracks the scope of an oil spill. Involves
    sophisticated analytical chemistry focused on finger printing an oil source based on the
    complex mixture of substances present.
    • Such analysis can also be used to follow weathering and degradation of crude spills.

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