An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program
Research stations in Antarctica are concentrated on scarce ice-free habitats. Operating these stations in the harsh Antarctic climate provides many challenges, including the need to handle bulk fuel and cargo increasing the risk of environmental incidents. We examined 195 reports of environmental in...
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Academic Press Ltd Elsevier Science Ltd
2018
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ftunivtasmania:oai:eprints.utas.edu.au:26600 2023-05-15T13:31:53+02:00 An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program Brooks, ST Jabour, J Sharman, AJ Bergstrom, DM 2018 https://eprints.utas.edu.au/26600/ unknown Academic Press Ltd Elsevier Science Ltd Brooks, ST orcid:0000-0002-0516-7841 , Jabour, J orcid:0000-0003-0185-8415 , Sharman, AJ and Bergstrom, DM 2018 , 'An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program' , Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 212 , pp. 340-348 , doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.02.024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.02.024>. Antarctica incidents accidents spills biosecurity footprint Article PeerReviewed 2018 ftunivtasmania https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.02.024 2021-09-13T22:17:34Z Research stations in Antarctica are concentrated on scarce ice-free habitats. Operating these stations in the harsh Antarctic climate provides many challenges, including the need to handle bulk fuel and cargo increasing the risk of environmental incidents. We examined 195 reports of environmental incidents from the Australian Antarctic Program, spanning six years, to investigate the impacts and pathways of contemporary environmental incidents. Fuel and chemical spills were most common, followed by biosecurity incursions. The majority of reports were assessed as having insignificant actual impacts. Either the incidents were small, or active, rapid response and mitigation procedures minimised impact. During the period only one spill report (4000 l) was assessed as a ‘high’ impact. This is despite over 13 million litres of diesel utilised. The majority of incidents occurred within the existing station footprints. The pathways leading to the incidents varied, with technical causes predominately leading to spills, and procedural failures leading to biosecurity incursions. The large number of reports with inconsequential impacts suggest an effective environmental management system with a good culture of reporting environmental incidents. Our findings suggest that the key to continual improvement in an ongoing environmental management system is to learn from incidences and take action to prevent them occurring again, with an end-goal of minimising the residual risk as much as possible. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Australian Antarctic Program University of Tasmania: UTas ePrints Antarctic Journal of Environmental Management 212 340 348 |
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University of Tasmania: UTas ePrints |
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ftunivtasmania |
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topic |
Antarctica incidents accidents spills biosecurity footprint |
spellingShingle |
Antarctica incidents accidents spills biosecurity footprint Brooks, ST Jabour, J Sharman, AJ Bergstrom, DM An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program |
topic_facet |
Antarctica incidents accidents spills biosecurity footprint |
description |
Research stations in Antarctica are concentrated on scarce ice-free habitats. Operating these stations in the harsh Antarctic climate provides many challenges, including the need to handle bulk fuel and cargo increasing the risk of environmental incidents. We examined 195 reports of environmental incidents from the Australian Antarctic Program, spanning six years, to investigate the impacts and pathways of contemporary environmental incidents. Fuel and chemical spills were most common, followed by biosecurity incursions. The majority of reports were assessed as having insignificant actual impacts. Either the incidents were small, or active, rapid response and mitigation procedures minimised impact. During the period only one spill report (4000 l) was assessed as a ‘high’ impact. This is despite over 13 million litres of diesel utilised. The majority of incidents occurred within the existing station footprints. The pathways leading to the incidents varied, with technical causes predominately leading to spills, and procedural failures leading to biosecurity incursions. The large number of reports with inconsequential impacts suggest an effective environmental management system with a good culture of reporting environmental incidents. Our findings suggest that the key to continual improvement in an ongoing environmental management system is to learn from incidences and take action to prevent them occurring again, with an end-goal of minimising the residual risk as much as possible. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Brooks, ST Jabour, J Sharman, AJ Bergstrom, DM |
author_facet |
Brooks, ST Jabour, J Sharman, AJ Bergstrom, DM |
author_sort |
Brooks, ST |
title |
An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program |
title_short |
An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program |
title_full |
An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program |
title_fullStr |
An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program |
title_full_unstemmed |
An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program |
title_sort |
analysis of environmental incidents for a national antarctic program |
publisher |
Academic Press Ltd Elsevier Science Ltd |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://eprints.utas.edu.au/26600/ |
geographic |
Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Australian Antarctic Program |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Australian Antarctic Program |
op_relation |
Brooks, ST orcid:0000-0002-0516-7841 , Jabour, J orcid:0000-0003-0185-8415 , Sharman, AJ and Bergstrom, DM 2018 , 'An analysis of environmental incidents for a national Antarctic program' , Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 212 , pp. 340-348 , doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.02.024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.02.024>. |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.02.024 |
container_title |
Journal of Environmental Management |
container_volume |
212 |
container_start_page |
340 |
op_container_end_page |
348 |
_version_ |
1766021802414309376 |