Since the early 1970s, experts have recognized that petroleum pollutants were being
discharged in marine waters worldwide, from oil spills, vessel operations, and land-based …

Environmental sensitivity index (ESI) maps and data are employed worldwide to prepare
contingency planning and responses for oil spills. The ESI approach has been successfully …

Contingency planning for potential oil spills is becoming a necessity for most of the coastal
waterways of the United States. An important part of a usable contingency plan is the …

Marine environments have suffered from a lack of quantitative methods for delineating areas
that are sensitive or vulnerable to particular stresses, natural and anthropogenic. We define …

Oil spills can devastate ecosystems and severely impact water quality. The Environmental
Sensitivity Index [ESI) was developed to reduce the en vironmen tal consequences of a spill …

The current case study focuses on the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) mapping of
Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil—a region at risk from petroleum sector pollution. By …

Small amounts of oil that can persist for decades in the intertidal zone of coarse-sediment
beaches have been documented in a few well-studied cases. Oil that survives attenuation …

As the typical range of influence of oil spills surrounds urbanised and economically active
areas, it is likely that fragile regions may not be part of the most vulnerable zones. This …

A methodology has been developed to carry out an integrated oil spill vulnerability index, V,
for coastal environments. This index takes into account the main physical, biological and …

Quantifying the distribution and abundance of intertidal organisms over large areas presents
problems to scientists and resource managers limited by time, personnel, and funding. The …