Oil Spills In Sea Research Articles

Full-Scale Aggregated MobileUNet: An Improved U-Net Architecture for SAR Oil Spill Detection.

Oil spills are a major threat to marine and coastal environments. Their unique radar backscatter intensity can be captured by synthetic aperture radar (SAR), resulting in dark regions in the images. However, many marine phenomena can lead to erroneous detections of oil spills. In addition, SAR images of the ocean include multiple targets, such as sea surface, land, ships, and oil spills and their look-alikes. The training of a multi-category classifier will encounter significant challenges due to the inherent class imbalance. Addressing this issue requires extracting target features more effectively. In this study, a lightweight U-Net-based model, Full-Scale Aggregated MobileUNet (FA-MobileUNet), was proposed to improve the detection performance for oil spills using SAR images. First, a lightweight MobileNetv3 model was used as the backbone of the U-Net encoder for feature extraction. Next, atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) and a convolutional block attention module (CBAM) were used to improve the capacity of the network to extract multi-scale features and to increase the speed of module calculation. Finally, full-scale features from the encoder were aggregated to enhance the network's competence in extracting features. The proposed modified network enhanced the extraction and integration of features at different scales to improve the accuracy of detecting diverse marine targets. The experimental results showed that the mean intersection over union (mIoU) of the proposed model reached more than 80% for the detection of five types of marine targets including sea surface, land, ships, and oil spills and their look-alikes. In addition, the IoU of the proposed model reached 75.85 and 72.67% for oil spill and look-alike detection, which was 18.94% and 25.55% higher than that of the original U-Net model, respectively. Compared with other segmentation models, the proposed network can more accurately classify the black regions in SAR images into oil spills and their look-alikes. Furthermore, the detection performance and computational efficiency of the proposed model were also validated against other semantic segmentation models.

High temperature and solar radiation in the Red Sea enhance the dissolution of crude oil from surface films

The Red Sea is a hotspot of biodiversity susceptible to oil pollution. Besides, it is one of the warmest seas on the Earth with highly transparent waters. In this study, we estimated the oil dissolution rates under natural sunlight spectra and temperature conditions using coastal oil slicks collected after the 2019 Sabiti oil spill in the Red Sea. Optical analyses revealed the significant interactive effect of sunlight and temperature in enhancing the dissolution of oil into dissolved organic matter (DOM). The highest oil dissolution rate (38.68 g C m−3 d−1) was observed in full-spectrum sunlight. Oil dissolution significantly enhanced total organic carbon (TOC) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in seawater. High nucleic acid (HNA) bacteria, likely the oil degraders, proliferated from 30 to 70 – 90% after 4 days. The heavier stable carbon isotopic composition of methane (δ13C-CH4) and lighter stable carbon isotopic composition of carbon dioxide (δ13C-CO2) indicate the putative role of bacterial processes in the natural degradation of crude oil. The results indicated that the combined effect of temperature and solar radiation enhanced the biological and photochemical dissolution of oil on the Red Sea surface.

MINDORO OIL SPILL PROGRESS MONITORING USING SATELLITE IMAGERY

Abstract. Oil spills in the sea pose a significant threat to marine and coastal ecosystems including corals, sea grasses, and mangroves. Responding to oil spills in the high seas can be challenging and costly, as it is difficult to survey the area using ships or planes. Timely monitoring of extents and direction of drift is costly especially when large area is involved. This study used satellite imagery to monitor the progression of an oil spill in a timely manner. Images captured by various types of sensors was used to provide an almost daily oil extent map. Combining opensource satellite imagery, contributed imagery by commercial providers, and imagery from various national space agencies enabled situational awareness during the oil spill incident. Optical and SAR images were processed by using unsupervised K-means classification, for images that undergone image segmentation, and supervised support vector machine classification. The process was used to produce 46 oil extent maps from 196 satellite images from various sources through Sentinel Asia and The International Charter Space and Major Disasters.

Hydrophobic sorbents based on ultrathin polymer fibers for trapping oil products

Relevance. Increasing negative effects of hydrocarbon production on aquatic ecosystems and tightening of legislative norms on discharge of oil and oil product contaminated water into marine waters. Among various methods used to remove oil from aqueous solutions the most appropriate one is adsorption method. It is explained by its high degree of purification, safety, availability, manufacturability, universality of application. Synthetic materials based on ultrafine fibers have optimal characteristics for manufacturing sorbents for oil removal on their basis. However, the large-scale application of these materials is limited by their high cost, complexity of manufacturing, which excludes the secondary use of polymers as feedstock. In this regard, there is a growing need for economically and environmentally effective hydrophobic materials for sorptive treatment of aqueous media from oil and petroleum products. Aim. To determine sorption properties of hydrophobic fibrous materials produced via pneumatic formation for use as effective hydrocarbon sorbents for liquidation of oil spills in sea and water treatment on oil production platforms. Objects. Sorbents based on polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate ultrafine fibers. Methods. Gravimetric, spectral analysis, transmission electron microscopy, gas chromatography. Results. The paper introduces the results of investigation of sorption properties of untreated ultrafine fibers obtained by pneumatic atomization and modified by microwave radiation. The authors have carried out the comparative analysis of water absorption and the influence of contact time and acidity of the medium on the degree of sorption of samples obtained from hydrophobic polymers. Promising application of sorbents based on polypropylene ultrathin fibers for oil products extraction from aqueous media was revealed. It is established that modification reduces water absorption of polypropylene sorbents and leads to an insignificant decrease in sorption properties due to changes in the supramolecular structure of polypropylene fiber samples.

Tracking the early signals of crude oil in seawater and plankton after a major oil spill in the Red Sea

Understanding the immediate impacts of oil spills is essential to recognizing their long-term consequences on the marine environment. In this study, we traced the early (within one week) signals of crude oil in seawater and plankton after a major oil spill in October 2019 in the Red Sea. At the time of sampling, the plume had moved eastward, but we detected significant signs of incorporation of oil carbon into the dissolved organic carbon pool, resulting in a 10–20% increase in the ultraviolet (UV) absorption coefficient (a254) of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM), elevated oil fluorescence emissions, and depletion of the carbon isotope composition (δ13C) of the seawater. The abundance of the picophytoplankton Synechococcus was not affected, but the proportion of low nucleic acid (LNA) bacteria was significantly higher. Moreover, specific bacterial genera (Alcanivorax, Salinisphaera, and Oleibacter) were enriched in the seawater microbiome. Metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) suggested that such bacteria presented pathways for growing on oil hydrocarbons. Traces of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were also detected in zooplankton tissues, revealing the rapid entry of oil pollutants into the pelagic food web. Our study emphasizes the early signs of short-lived spills as an important aspect of the prediction of long-term impacts of marine oil spills.

An assessment of relative potential impacts to Cyprus’ shoreline due to oil spills in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

An oil spill occurrence is a concerning pervasive situation that can result in significant risk, depending on where it starts, the oil properties, and the environmental conditions. In the region of Cyprus, there is an intense traffic of shipping activities which intensifies the risk of an oil spill due to vessel density and prolongated permanence time. The purpose of this work is to obtain the relative potential impact in Cyprus by performing an assessment based on mathematical simulations to identify the critical places in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, aiming at increasing the readiness for minimising the impact of an oil spill in sensitive areas, with attention to the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and anthroposphere. This work simulated 384 scenarios using Mohid and Opendrift platforms with the same data input. The preliminary results presented significant impact in Cyprus’ western regions, mainly. However, after interpolating with history, sensitivity, distance, and two models, only three specific regions showed a potential relative impact. Though different platforms have been used, there were some equivalences in the predictions. Based on it, a new and more specific mathematical method was proposed to assess the potential relative impact of an oil spill in Cyprus, concluding that even with much more intense oil transport in other areas of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the most significant relative risks are in fact, in the areas surrounding Cyprus. In particular, the region in the south, east and west of Cyprus. It must be emphasised that the south of Cyprus is an important region for the economy of the country.

Possible environmental solutions to oil spills in the Black Sea due to the Russian invasion (on the examples of the U.S. and international experience dealing with oil spills)

The Black Sea is an inland sea, that is basically isolated from the World Ocean. Even though it is connected only with the Mediterranean Sea through the Turkish Straits, the Black Sea is very environmentally vulnerable. Armed conflict invariably has a negative impact on nature. Oil spills that happened because of Russian invasion have radically changed the ecosystems of the Black Sea, and subsequently seriously threatened its biodiversity, and ecosystem as a whole. During the last 20-30 years, even before the full-scale Russian invasion, specialists of the Ukrainian Scientific Center for Marine Ecology, together with the EMBLAS project, were deeply worried about changes in the Black Sea [1].
 Even more rapid change in the Black Sea ecosystem happened in June 2022 when Russian forces used two anti-ship missiles to target an abandoned cargo tanker adrift in the northern Black Sea. The vessel was loaded with around 600 tons of diesel fuel. The abandoned tankers, with thousands of barrels of diesel fuel, constituted an “environmental time bomb [2].” 
 As to the existing framework, in 1992, six coastal countries (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, the Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukraine) signed and ratified the Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea from Pollution. Since then, the Black Sea Pollution Protection Commission has been responsible for the sustainable management of the Black Sea. The real effectiveness of this Commission turned out to be very low considering the fact that not a single act was adopted for the preservation of the Black Sea in terms of Russian invasion since February 24th 2022.
 Indeed, there is some legal protection for nature under the laws of armed conflict too, although these laws are ambiguous and have strict limitations. For instance, there is a set of Draft Principles for environmental preservation in relation to armed conflict, which was just adopted by the UN International Law Commission. 
 Thus, in the absence of adequate international mechanisms to address oil spills immediately, it is worth to take into account well established US Response System as the federal government mechanism to respond to discharges of oil into navigable waters of the US. While this system functions through a cooperative network of federal, state, and local agencies, Ukraine lacks this coordinated cooperation, and cannot respond properly to the significant contamination of the Black Sea.
 Thus, we will reveal the existing international mechanisms to combat oil spills. Then, we will mainly focus on US Governing policies that deal with oil spills on the Exxon Valdez oil spill example, applying it to the existing policies in Ukraine.

Catalytic metal-organic framework-melamine foam composite as an efficient material for the elimination of organic pollutants.

Water-insoluble organic pollutants in environment, such as sea oil spill, industrial reagents, and the abused organic pesticides, bring great risks to global water systems, which thus requires effective approaches for organic pollutant elimination. In this study, we report a catalytic metal-organic framework (MOF)-melamine foam (MF) composite material (DDT-UiO-66-NH2@MF) showing excellent oil-water separation performance and enzyme-like degradation ability toward organophosphorus pesticides. The fabrication of DDT-UiO-66-NH2@MF is based on the immobilization of a MOF-derived nanozyme (UiO-66-NH2) on MF sponge, and followed by the hydrophobic modification of UiO-66-NH2 by 1-dodecanethiol (DDT). The obtained DDT-UiO-66-NH2@MF thus displayed superhydrophobic/superhydrophilic property with a high water contact angle (WCA = 144.6°) and specific adsorption capacity toward various oils/organic solvents (62.2-119.8g/g), which leads to a continuous oil-water separation on a simple device. In the meanwhile, owing to the enzyme-like property of UiO-66-NH2, DDT-UiO-66-NH2@MF also displayed good ability to hydrolyze paraoxon under mild conditions, which facilitates the elimination of toxic pesticide residuals in water systems. This work provides a simple, efficient, and green approach for the separation and treatment of water-insoluble organic pollutants, as well as expands the use of MOFs-MF sponge composite materials in environmental sustainability.

Multi-Mission Satellite Detection and Tracking of October 2019 Sabiti Oil Spill in the Red Sea

A multi-mission satellite remote sensing (MSRS) approach is explored to detect and track leaked oil from the Sabiti oil tanker accident that occurred in the central Red Sea on 11 October 2019 (RSOS-2019). The spilled oil spread rapidly and reached the coastal land near Jeddah, the second largest city of KSA, on 17 October. Different oil spill detection algorithms were implemented on SAR and optical sensor-based satellite images to track the oil spill. Sentinel-1 SAR images were most efficient at detecting the spread and thickness of RSOS-2019, but their spatio-temporal coverage greatly limits their use for tracking the oil movement. The spread and propagation of oil were well captured by Sentinel-2 images up to three weeks after the accident day, in agreement with the SAR images. MODIS successfully detected the narrow patch of oil that was leaked on the incident day and the widespread oil patches two days after. Landsat-8 RGB composite and thermal infrared images captured the oil spill on 13 October. By filtering clouds from the Meteosat images through sequential analysis, the spread and movement of the oil patches were efficiently tracked on 13 October. PlanetScope images available between 12 and 17 October enabled tracking of the oil near the coastal waters. The inferred oil spill movements are consistent with the ocean currents as revealed by a high-resolution regional ocean reanalysis. Our results demonstrate the potential of the MSRS approach to detect and track oil spills in the open and coastal waters of the Red Sea in near real-time.

Modelling and Remote Sensing of Oil Spill in the Mediterranean Sea: A Case Study on Baniyas Power Plant Oil Spill

Modelling and Remote Sensing of Oil Spill in the Mediterranean Sea: A Case Study on Baniyas Power Plant Oil Spill

Nitrogen dependence of rhamnolipid mediated degradation of petroleum crude oil by indigenous Pseudomonas sp. WD23 in seawater.

Effect of oil spills on living forms demands for safe, ecofriendly and cost-effective methods to repair the damage. Pseudomonads have exceptional tolerance to xenobiotics and can grow at varied environmental conditions. This study aims at biosurfactant mediated degradation of petroleum crude oil by an indigenous Pseudomonas sp. WD23 in sea water. Pseudomonas sp. WD23 degraded 34% of petroleum crude oil (1.0% v/v) on supplementation of yeast extract (0.05g/L) with glucose (1.0g/L) in seawater. The strain produced a biosurfactant which was confirmed as a rhamnolipid (lipid: rhamnose 1:3.35) by FT-IR, LCMS and quantitative analysis. Produced rhamnolipid had low CMC (20.0mg/L), emulsified petroleum oils (75-80%) and had high tolreance to varied conditions of pH, temperature and ionic strength. OFAT studies were performed to analyse the effect of petroleum crude oil, glucose, inoculum, yeast extract, pH, agitation speed and incubation time on degradation by Pseudomonas sp. WD23. Petroleum crude oil and glucose had significant effect on biodegradation, rhamnolipid production and growth, further optimized by central composite design. At optimum conditions of 3.414% v/v PCO and 6.53g/L glucose, maximum degradation of 81.8±0.67% was observed at pH 7.5, 100 RPM, 15.0% v/v inoculum in 28 days, with a 3-fold increase in biodegradation. GCMS analysis revealed degradation (86-100%) of all low and high molecular weight hydrocarbons present in petroleum crude oil. Hence, the strain Pseudomonas sp. WD23 can be effectively developed for management of oil spills in seas and oceans due to its excellent degradation abilities.

A portable UAV-based laser-induced fluorescence lidar system for oil pollution and aquatic environment monitoring

A portable laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) lidar detection system for the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was developed. The system consists of a transmitting and receiving module, a data processing module and a wireless transmission module. The total weight of the LIF lidar system is 5 kg. The system emits 405 nm laser to irradiate the water body, which can realize the monitoring of oil spills and chlorophyll content in the seawater by receiving the fluorescence signal with a spectral range of 400–750 nm. The fluorescence detection data of the LIF system on the UAV are synchronized to the ground terminal through a wireless transmission module, and the acquired fluorescence data are processed by a ground computer in real-time. The performance of the system was tested at a flight altitude of 30 m, and the spectral data of the seawater and oil slicks seawater were studied. The obtained results demonstrate the ability of the LIF lidar system to realize seawater fluorescence remote sensing measurement. The system is convenient and inexpensive for routinely sea monitoring and oil spill monitoring on a regional scale.

An update on the remote sensing applications for sustainable coastal management

Sea surface salinity, sea surface temperature and oil spills in coastal zone observations are significant geophysical parameters in the Earth’s weather and climate system. These are critical for understanding dispersion and biogeochemical interaction between marine and land ecosystems. Coastal habitats such as wetlands, mangroves, seagrass beds, salt marshes, estuaries, coral reefs and sand beaches provide invaluable benefits to marine life and humans. Natural calamities such as tropical cyclones, coastal flooding and turbidity impact coastal ecosystems. Anthropogenic activities like aquaculture, infrastructure development, tourism services and ship mooring severely affect coastal habitats. The restoration and conservation of these coastal habitats are essential to achieve sustainable coastal management to protect natural resources and the global environment. Traditional methods of sampling and monitoring the marine habitats have various limitations as they are very costly and time-consuming as well as have less spatial coverage making it impossible to investigate the whole ecosystem. With the advancement of earth observation capabilities in recent decades, remote sensing technology has expanded to include a wide range of issues including biophysical parameter inversion and ecosystem process characterization. Remote sensing technology has been extensively utilized to map the coastline and it has the potential to update maps continuously. So, this study provides a comprehensive update on the remote sensing technologies that have been providing immense services to monitor and analyze coastal habitat changes.

Assessing the impacts of Sanchi incident on Chinese law concerning ship-source oil pollution

The Sanchi oil spill incident occurred in East China Sea, in terms of the amount spilt, is the largest in China and ninth in the world so far. The existing studies show that the current legal regime on ship-source oil pollution is largely pushed forward by a few disastrous incidents. Accordingly, this paper presumes that the Sanchi incident significantly promoted Chinese law concerning ship-source oil pollution. However, after looking into the development, particularly the recent improvements of China's legal system in this regard, we find that: 1) China has already proactively established its legal framework on ship-source oil pollution before Sanchi incident along with the growing volume of oil import; 2) only a few pieces of legislations on preventing and reducing oil spills are directly triggered by the Sanchi incident; and 3) the factors including compliance with international treaties, China's long-term legislation plans, reform of the central governance, and others, have additionally prompted China to update its legal framework in the aftermath of Sanchi incident. Furthermore, we identify that some legal issues demonstrated by the Sanchi incident remain unresolved, as follows: 1) China still lacks adequate capabilities in many respects to respond to the open sea oil spills; 2) a clear action plan is necessary for China to enhance international and regional cooperation; and 3) the amount of funds available under China's own compensation law is inadequate. Therefore, it is recommended that China should learn from the Sanchi incident to enhance capacity building on emergency response to open sea oil spill, to promote international and regional cooperation for combating oil pollution, and to level up the compensation standards for tanker oil pollution.

Development of an oil-absorbent web by the dry-laid method from polypropylene and chemically treated kapok

PurposeKapok was well-known for its oleophilic properties, but its mechanical properties and morphology impeded it from forming suitable absorbent materials. This study aims to demonstrate the process of creating an oil-absorbent web from a blend of treated kapok and polypropylene fibers.Design/methodology/approachKapok fibers were separated from dried fruits, then the wax was removed with an HCl solution at different concentrations. The morphological and structural changes of these fibers were investigated using scanning electron microscopy images. The blending ratios of kapok and polypropylene fibers were 60/40, 70/30 and 80/20, respectively. The fiber blends were fed to a laboratory carding machine to form a web and then consolidated using the heat press technique. The absorption behavior of the formed web was evaluated regarding oil absorption capacity and oil retention capacity according to ASTM 726.FindingsThe results showed that the HCl concentration of 1.0% (wt%) gave the highest wax removal efficiency without damaging the kapok fibers. This study found that oil absorbency is influenced by the fiber blending ratio, web tensile strength and elongation, porosity, oil type and environmental conditions. The oil-absorbency of the web can be re-used for at least 20 cycles.Research limitations/implicationsThis study only looked at three types of oils: diesel, kerosene and vegetable oils.Practical implicationsWhen the problem of oil spills in rivers and seas is growing and causing serious environmental and economic consequences, using physical methods to recover oil spills is the most effective solution.Originality/valueThis research adds to the possibility of using kapok fiber in the form of a web of non-woven fabric for practical purposes.

Comparison of CNNs and Vision Transformers-Based Hybrid Models Using Gradient Profile Loss for Classification of Oil Spills in SAR Images

Oil spillage over a sea or ocean surface is a threat to marine and coastal ecosystems. Spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data have been used efficiently for the detection of oil spills due to their operational capability in all-day all-weather conditions. The problem is often modeled as a semantic segmentation task. The images need to be segmented into multiple regions of interest such as sea surface, oil spill, lookalikes, ships, and land. Training of a classifier for this task is particularly challenging since there is an inherent class imbalance. In this work, we train a convolutional neural network (CNN) with multiple feature extractors for pixel-wise classification and introduce a new loss function, namely, “gradient profile” (GP) loss, which is in fact the constituent of the more generic spatial profile loss proposed for image translation problems. For the purpose of training, testing, and performance evaluation, we use a publicly available dataset with selected oil spill events verified by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). The results obtained show that the proposed CNN trained with a combination of GP, Jaccard, and focal loss functions can detect oil spills with an intersection over union (IoU) value of 63.95%. The IoU value for sea surface, lookalikes, ships, and land class is 96.00%, 60.87%, 74.61%, and 96.80%, respectively. The mean intersection over union (mIoU) value for all the classes is 78.45%, which accounts for a 13% improvement over the state of the art for this dataset. Moreover, we provide extensive ablation on different convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and vision transformers (ViTs)-based hybrid models to demonstrate the effectiveness of adding GP loss as an additional loss function for training. Results show that GP loss significantly improves the mIoU and F1 scores for CNNs as well as ViTs-based hybrid models. GP loss turns out to be a promising loss function in the context of deep learning with SAR images.

Effect of subsea dispersant application on deepwater oil spill in the South China Sea

Effect of subsea dispersant application on deepwater oil spill in the South China Sea

Study on the Key Technology of Deepwater Oil Spill Simulation in the South China Sea

With the development of oil and gas fields in deepwater areas, the risk of deepwater oil spill accidents is increasing. In order to improve the capacity of deepwater oil spill contingency response and management in the South China Sea, an user-friendly and robust 3D (three-dimensional) underwater oil spill simulation system is developed by using the MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) interface library and the 3D OSG (Open Scene Graph) rendering engine. Many key technologies including submarine topography drawing, sea surface emulation, three-dimensional current display and oil particle simulation are developed and integrated, and the functions including 3D simulations of marine environment and deepwater oil spill prediction are also implemented in the simulation software system. The 3D oil spill simulation system has been applied in the preparation of oil spill response plans (OSRP) for Liwan 3-1 Block, Liwan 43-11 Block, Chevron’s Block 42-05 and Baiyun Block in the South China Sea. Preliminary application shows that the system can provide convenient and intuitive visual interactive services for the exploitation of oil and gas resources in the deepwater area of the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the system also specifies underwater trajectories of oil spill in deep waters, the concentration distribution of oil spilled in water, and the time and place the spilled oil reaches the surface, thus providing technical support for on-scene oil spill emergency response and marine environmental impact assessment.

Automatic Detection of Low-Backscatter Targets in the Arctic Using Wide Swath Sentinel-1 Imagery

Low backscatter signatures in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery are characteristic to surfaces that are highly smooth and specular reflective of microwave radiation. In the Arctic, these typically represent newly formed sea ice, oil spills, and localized weather phenomena such as low wind or rain cells. The operational monitoring of low backscatter targets can benefit from a stronger integration of freely available SAR imagery from Sentinel-1. We therefore propose a detection method applicable to Sentinel-1 Extra Wide-Swath (EW) SAR scenes. Using intensity values coupled with incidence angle and Noise-Equivalent Sigma Zero (NESZ) information, the image segmentation method is able to detect the low backscatter targets as one segment across sub-swaths. We use the Barents Sea as a test site due to the abundant presence of low backscatter targets with different origins, and of long-term operational monitoring services that help cross-validate our observations. Utilising a large set of scenes acquired in the Barents Sea during the freezing season (November - April), we demonstrate the potential of performing large-scale operational monitoring of local phenomena with low backscatter signatures.

Public health impacts of an imminent Red Sea oil spill.

The possibility of a massive oil spill in the Red Sea is increasingly likely. The Safer, a deteriorating oil tanker containing 1.1 million barrels of oil, has been deserted near the coast of Yemen since 2015 and threatens environmental catastrophe to a country presently in a humanitarian crisis. Here, we model the immediate public health impacts of a simulated spill. We estimate that all of Yemen’s imported fuel through its key Red Sea ports would be disrupted and that the anticipated spill could disrupt clean-water supply equivalent to the daily use of 9.0–9.9 million people, food supply for 5.7–8.4 million people and 93–100% of Yemen’s Red Sea fisheries. We also estimate an increased risk of cardiovascular hospitalization from pollution ranging from 5.8 to 42.0% over the duration of the spill. The spill and its potentially disastrous impacts remain entirely preventable through offloading the oil. Our results stress the need for urgent action to avert this looming disaster.