title: Environmental risk analysis of oil handling facilities in port areas. Application to Tarragona harbor (NE Spain).
abstract: Diffuse pollution from oil spills is a widespread problem in port areas (as a result of fuel supply, navigation and loading/unloading activities). This article presents a method to assess the environmental risk of oil handling facilities in port areas. The method is based on (i) identification of environmental hazards, (ii) characterization of meteorological and oceanographic conditions, (iii) characterization of environmental risk scenarios, and (iv) assessment of environmental risk. The procedure has been tested by application to the Tarragona harbor. The results show that the method is capable of representing (i) specific local pollution cases (i.e., discriminating between products and quantities released by a discharge source), (ii) oceanographic and meteorological conditions (selecting a representative subset data), and (iii) potentially affected areas in probabilistic terms. Accordingly, it can inform the design of monitoring plans to study and control the environmental impact of these facilities, as well as the design of contingency plans.
authors.affiliation: Environmental Hydraulics Institute "IH Cantabria", Universidad de Cantabria, C/Isabel Torres No. 15, Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Cantabria, 39011 Santander, Spain. Electronic address: fernandezvp@unican.es.
authors.forename: Paloma F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Valdor
authors.affiliation: Environmental Hydraulics Institute "IH Cantabria", Universidad de Cantabria, C/Isabel Torres No. 15, Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Cantabria, 39011 Santander, Spain.
authors.forename: Aina G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Gómez
authors.affiliation: Environmental Hydraulics Institute "IH Cantabria", Universidad de Cantabria, C/Isabel Torres No. 15, Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Cantabria, 39011 Santander, Spain.
authors.forename: Araceli
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Puente
mesh_terms: D004777:Environment; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004787:Environmental Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D059392:Petroleum Pollution; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013030:Spain
keywords: Contingency plans; Environmental variability; Potentially affected areas; Probability; Scenario characterization