title: Challenges in global ballast water management.
abstract: Ballast water management is a complex issue raising the challenge of merging international regulations, ship's specific configurations along with ecological conservation. This complexity is illustrated in this paper by considering ballast water volume, discharge frequency, ship safety and operational issues aligned with regional characteristics to address ecological risk for selected routes. A re-estimation of ballast water volumes gives a global annual level of 3500 Mton. Global ballast water volume discharged into open sea originating from ballast water exchange operations is estimated to approximately 2800 Mton. Risk based decision support systems coupled to databases for different ports and invasive species characteristics and distributions can allow for differentiated treatment levels while maintaining low risk levels. On certain routes, the risk is estimated to be unacceptable and some kind of ballast water treatment or management should be applied.
authors.affiliation: Det Norske Veritas, Veritasveien 1, N-1322 Høvik, Norway. oyvind.endresen@dnv.com
authors.forename: Øyvind
authors.initials: Ø
authors.lastname: Endresen
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee Behrens
authors.forename: Sigrid
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brynestad
authors.forename: Aage
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bjørn Andersen
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Skjong
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012767:Ships; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid