Abstract
The effects of crude oils entering marine environment have been investigated since early 1960s when oil pollution became a subject of global environmental concern. Extraction and transportation of crude oils have been contributing to water pollution especially in closed water basins, such as the Baltic Sea. It was estimated that yearly oil input to the Baltic Sea amounts to 21-70 thousands of tons, which is twice higher than in the North Sea and three times higher than in the North Atlantic. Growing pollution loads into the Baltic Sea created a demand for multifarious studies on the environmental effects of oil products. In this study, we focus on bio-optical and ecological aspects of the presence of crude oil in seawater. Dispersed oil droplets occur in seawater as the result of contaminated river inflows, bilge water discharges and as the consequence of mechanical and chemical dispersion of oil spills. Their optical properties depend on oil type, concentration and size distribution. We present further results obtained from the developed fluorescence-based method for determination of the crude oil concentration in natural Baltic seawater and for evaluation of the oil droplets size by applying vacuum filtering. The results have been measured for the samples collected in Southern Baltic Sea during several ship cruises in 2012. We discuss the application of vacuum filtering in the fluorescence analyses in the context of laboratory, in situ and remote detection of dispersed oil.
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