Application Of Risk Assessment Of Oil Spill From Ships To The Regional Environmental Planning

Marine environment is an indispensable part of the natural habitat for mankind existence and development. It is crucial to protect the marine environment for the sustainable development of coastal zones. With the increase of oil transportation volumes by sea, the frequent occurrence of oil spill from ship has become one of the major factors responsible for the marine environment pollution. Detrimental to the marine ecological system, those oil spill accidents has brought disastrous economic losses to the local fishery, aquaculture and tourism and put economic development and marine environmental protection in an unfavorable position. Therefore, it bears both the academic and practical significance to study risk assessment of oil spill from ships and preventive measures, especially at the stage of the regional environmental planning, to assist the risk management and decision making of oil spill from ships and to effectively avoid the environmental risk resulting from wrong decisions.On the basis of theories from disciplines like environmental science, environmental planning, environmental assessment and environmental management, this thesis establishes a risk assessment framework and method system for oil spill from ships in the regional environmental planning to the bay and the surrounding areas with a combination of literature review, data collection, theoretical analysis, model construction and case study methods. The assessment framework and method system are applied to the case study on Luoyuan Bay. The major findings of the thesis are listed below:(1) Literature review and analysis on the current regional environment planning reveal that there are rare theories and case studies available on environmental risk assessment (ERA) from the aspect of regional environmental planning system. By elaborating the necessity and significance of including ERA into regional environmental planning, this thesis advances that ERA should be brought into regional environmental planning system. Furthermore, a framework of the regional environmental planning to the bay and the surrounding areas, comprising the risk assessment of oil spill from ships, is put forward according to the coastal environmental characteristics.(2) On the basis of relevant studies at home and abroad, the thesis constructs a framework of the risk assessment of oil spill from ships applicable to the regional environmental planning to the bay and the surrounding areas. The framework mainly includes the risk identification of oil spill from ships accident, the prediction and assessment of such risk, risk management and preventive measures. Meanwhile, the assessment model of oil spill from ships is established through mathematical statistics, numerical simulation and computer assisted methods to form a method system suitable for the regional environmental planning to the bay and the surrounding areas.(3) The framework and method system is applied to the case study on Luoyuan Bay, predicting and analyzing the risk of oil spill from Luoyuan Bay. The results indicate that with the rapid development of harbor transportation, there are risks of oil spill that cannot be overlooked in Luoyuan Bay. According to the predicted number of ships in and out of Luoyuan Bay in the future, the probability of oil spill from ships is 0.0925, about once each ten years. As the number of ships in the harbor increases, especially the number of oil tankers, the probability of oil spill also increases. By calculation of the probability of oil tankers in different tonnages, it is inferred that the possible quantity at one time would be 57.3 tons (67.41m3) and the oil diffusion area would become 0.64km2 after one tidal cycle. Oil spill accident may have a severe effect on the ecological environment, especially on the aquaculture within the bay. The thesis puts forward some relevant measures for the risk prevention of oil spill in Luoyuan Bay from several aspects such as the improvement of ship transportation manage system and regulation, channel navigation condition, the quality of crew member and supervision of ships in and out of the harbors. The thesis discusses problems relating to the formation of oil contingency plan in Luoyuan Bay at the same time. The risk assessment of Luoyuan Bay provides scientific support for the formulation of Luoyuan Bay environmental protection planning in the future.