Impacts of oil spills on Arctic marine ecosystems: A quantitative and probabilistic risk assessment perspective

• Published in: Environmental Science & Technology
• Main Authors: Helle, Inari, Mäkinen, Jussi Antti-Eerikki, Nevalainen, Maisa Katariina, Afenyo, Mawuli, Vanhatalo, Jarno
• Other Authors: Environmental and Ecological Statistics Group, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme, Research Centre for Ecological Change, Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Biostatistics Helsinki
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 2020
• Subjects: 1181 Ecology; evolutionary biology; 1172 Environmental sciences; 1171 Geosciences; 112 Statistics and probability; MODEL; SEA; ICE; TRANSPORT; FATE; Arctic; Kara Sea; Northern Sea Route; Sea ice; walrus*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/313529

Oil spills resulting from maritime accidents pose a poorly understood risk to the Arctic environment. We propose a novel probabilistic method to quantitatively assess these risks. Our method accounts for spatiotemporally varying population distributions, the spreading of oil, and seasonally varying species-specific exposure potential and sensitivity to oil. It quantifies risk with explicit uncertainty estimates, enables one to compare risks over large geographic areas, and produces information on a meaningful scale for decision-making. We demonstrate the method by assessing the short-term risks oil spills pose to polar bears, ringed seals, and walrus in the Kara Sea, the western part of the Northern Sea Route. The risks differ considerably between species, spatial locations, and seasons. Our results support current aspirations to ban heavy fuel oil in the Arctic but show that we should not underestimate the risks of lighter oils either, as these oils can pollute larger areas than heavier ones. Our results also highlight the importance of spatially explicit season-specific oil spill risk assessment in the Arctic and that environmental variability and the lack of data are a major source of uncertainty related to the oil spill impacts. Peer reviewed