The Mediterranean Sea is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Although accidental oil spills are infrequent, there are more constant incidents of ships oil tanks that are illegally washed whilst sailing, causing environmental damage to the marine ecosystem. The European-wide CleanSeaNet (CSN) service operated by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), uses Sentinel-1 and other data to identify potential oil slicks and possible polluters in a matter minutes. Alerts are sent to authorised users enabling costal states to detect possible oil spills in their maritime zones. This service provides not only the spill position and extent but also an indication of which vessel may be responsible.
The surveillance process and risk of detection is a powerful deterrent and has reduced the number of oil-slicks by up to 65% in the last 10 years as CSN has achieved wider and more regular coverage through the use of imagery from Sentinel 1. The amount of oil entering the marine ecosystem has been significantly reduced thereby lowering the cost of any clean-up operation and increasing its effectiveness.
The study finds that there are significant cost savings by the coastal states and more efficient use of their marine patrol aircraft. Overall costs are significantly reduced by providing the service at European level. The authors estimate the annual economic benefit from the use of CSN and Sentinel data to protect the Mediterranean to be between EUR 41.7m and EUR 81.1m
Environmental – the authors consider that the primary benefits from the use of Sentinel data lie in its environmental impact. The reduction of the amount of oil entering the marine environment is critical to maintaining the sensitive marine ecosystem.
Regulatory – CSN improves compliance with existing legislation through enhanced monitoring of oil pollution and enables greater enforcement of legislation through better surveillance.
Entrepreneurship and innovation – CSN is driving an innovative process to make imagery of suspected oil spills available in less than 20 minutes.
Science and technology – the wide scale nature of measurements with Sentinel data is enabling research projects into oil spills and research into drift models to understand where the oil is moving.
Societal – reduced oil pollution improves the environment and brings a better quality of life for costal communities.
The study presents the following quantifiable impacts:
For the service provider EMSA improved coverage at reduced cost of the CSN service together with a more comprehensive service is estimated to bring annual savings of EUR 27.6m – EUR 56.2 pa.
For the primary users – the national agencies – using the CSN service has brought about significant cost savings for costal states and more efficient use of their marine patrol aircraft, estimated to be EUR 12.8m – EUR 22.4m pa.
For secondary beneficiaries, CSN helps local authorities monitor and protect other assets that may be oil polluting such as fish arms and oil terminals – the study estimates the benefit to be EUR 320k – EUR 480k pa.
For citizens and society, due to cleaner beaches and bathing waters as well as the protection of businesses concerned with fishing and tourism the benefits are considered to be EUR 1m – EUR 2m pa.
The total economic benefits are found to be EUR 41.7m – EUR 81.1m pa.
Find this article at:
https://earsc.org/sebs/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Clean-Seas-in-the-Mediterranean-final.pdf
This case study, undertaken by the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC), is one in a series of case studies from the Sentinel Economic Benefits Study (SEBS) – a large study to show how Earth Observation (EO) derived products and services, based on data generated by one or more Sentinel satellites, deliver value to society and citizens.