Journal of Oceanography and Marine Research
Open Access

Environmental sensitivity mapping as a management tool for coastal protection in the contingency planning for oil spill response

International Conference on Coastal Zones

May 16-18, 2016 Osaka, Japan

Sylvia Jagerroos

Environmental Resource Management, Malaysia

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: Oceanography

Abstract :

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history. Extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats, fishing and tourism industries was reported, and is still ongoing today. One of the primary objectives of oil spill planning and response, after protecting human life, is to reduce the environmental consequences of a spill. This objective is best achieved if the locations of sensitive resources are identified in advance, so that protection priorities can be established and the most appropriate clean-up strategy selected. The most commonly adopted approach to define these sensitive areas or receptors are based on the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Mapping strategy, where the data collected are divided into different categories of sensitivity with their relevant features and stored in a GIS database. The question is whether the operators are updating their coastal areas sensitivity map accordingly and efficiently and whether the operators are sharing their data with government agencies, in order to enhance coastal conservation and coastal protection and maximise the response in case of an emergency event.

Biography :

Sylvia Jagerroos is a Senior Consultant with ERM and has over fifteen years’ experience assessing a wide range of marine environment and has in depth knowledge of sensitive tropical habitat assessments. She is specialised in Climate Change and resilience adaptation, and has collaborated with the World Bank to establish Coastal Management plans on islands in the Maldives. She has assessed other projects in a wide range of countries like Kenya, Sri Lanka, Australia, Philippines, Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia. She is currently working on several offshore projects in the region of South East Asia where she is developing environmental studies mainly for the oil and gas sector.

Email: sylviakm@gmail.com