Quantifying Arctic oil spilling event risk by integrating an analytic network process and a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model

Abstract

The development of economic globalization and increasing ice melting in Arctic area enables Arctic shipping activities more convenient. Exploring impact of extreme events (i.e., oil spilling) occurring in the Arctic region attracts increasing interest from the shipping industry and maritime traffic community. For the sustainable Arctic development and marine environment protection, it is in need to develop a comprehensive risk assessment framework to suppress potential loss caused by Arctic oil spill event. To that aim, the study quantifies the Arctic oil spill event impact with an ensemble framework supported by the analytic network process (ANP) and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model. More specifically, we quantify varied factors (e.g., environment, economy, social influence, recovery mode) and establish oil spilling risk level via the help of fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model in the proposed framework. Experimental results suggest that our proposed framework can accurately quantify influence of an oil spilling event in Arctic area, and thus the potential risk level can be accurately identified. The proposed framework provides a novel and reasonable decision-making tool, which can help Arctic related communities conduct varied activities in a more reasonable yet lower-risk manner.