Vulnerability of Arctic Coastal Environments to Oil Spill Impacts (White Sea Case Study)

Abstract

Abstract The abstract describes one possible approach to complex account environmental factors to determine the sensitivity of shoreline bays of the White Sea to the oil spill, proposed integral index of the sensitivity of coastal areas, taking into account the relationship of geological and geomorphological structure of the coast, the physical processes that occur in contact with the oil on shore and the vulnerability of biota to oil spills. The results of the practical implementation of the proposed approach and revealed the most stable and the most sensitive areas of the coastline of the Kandalaksha and Onega Bay of the White Sea. The integrated vulnerability index portion is determined by summing the two components: Vulnerability index components of the biota, in turn, defined as the sum of the biomass component of the biota ranged in a certain season, a factor of vulnerability of the component from exposure to oil spill (the latter was determined by expert assessment). Index ESI (Environmental Sensitivity Index), NOAA experts proposed in 1976, ESI allows typify the coast on a scale of 1 to 10, with the assignment of the appropriate category of sensitivity determined by the conditions and the duration of conservation of natural oil, wind and wave loading the coast, its geomorphological features and technical complexity of the cleaning oil. An analysis of the satellite imagery SPOT-4 in the visible range obtained data on 700 km of the coast of Bay of the White Sea, allocated 67 segments, differentiated by the two above indices. In ArcGIS environment built four integrated maps showing the sensitivity of the coasts in winter, spring, autumn and summer seasons. In the project tree consists of the following layers: topographic base scale of 1: 25,000, the layers of hydrography, hypsometry, map the seasonal distribution of biomass components of biota and integral sensitivity maps coasts to oil spills. The study suggests that the coast of the Kandalaksha and Onega Bay of the White Sea over a large area have a relatively high index of sensitivity, which leads to the need for development and improvement plans LC, recycling technologies of oil pollution (mainly Ecobiotechnologies), methods of remote sensing, as well as the creation and expansion of the network of marine and coastal protected areas. The novelty of the work is as follows: Accounting for different responses to oil the various components of the biota; The approach to determining the sensitivity regarding the two main elements of the environment - geological and geomorphological base and biota; It is worth noting the need to introduce in the index makrofitotsenoticheskoy components as well as the automation of the updating of the database project ArcGIS for constant updating sensitivity maps coasts.