| Summary: | With increasing presence and interest of shipping activities in the Arctic, the risk for an oil spill also increases. The activities are coupled to a growth of Arctic tourism (cruise vessels), exploitation of oil and gas resources as well as possibilities for merchant ships to sail the routes of Northwest and Northeast passages. The Arctic offers an impressive environment with high potential for tourism and offshore activities, however the Arctic is also highly vulnerable. Thus, higher demand of awareness of the risks as well as the possibilities and opportunities to take care of an oil spill and reduce the consequences are needed. Initially the report gives a background to the subject of Arctic oil spill which is followed by a review of Arctic oil spill response. The processes involved and oil spill countermeasures that are used or have shown potential in Arctic conditions are handled. To increase awareness a decision support tool which aims to cover preparedness, response and performance of an Arctic oil spill response operations is developted and presented. In the model structure, a wide range of input and sub-models are included to be able to cover the whole operation and different sub-areas that are identified. Finally a further developed part of the decision support tool is presented concerning the window of opportunity which review the response methods. The model, which is based on a Bayesian Network approach, provides the user with estimations of response method potentials as function of time. The model output are easy and clear to interpret for contingency planning as well as for operational use.
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