Assessing ecological sensitivities of marine assets to oil spill by means of expert knowledge

Abstract

Existing methodologies to assess risk due to vessel traffic often do not account for damages to marine assets in case of oil or chemical spills from ships. While some socio-economic damages can be quantified in monetary terms, expert knowledge is often the only way to assess potential damages to the marine ecology. The use of expert knowledge introduces a source of uncertainty. We propose a method which minimizes recognized flaws in subjective assessments by eliciting sensitivity ratings from multiple assessors and recognizing their differences of opinion as a source of uncertainty. We also explore various scoring options to reflect overall expert opinions. We develop and apply the methodology to the Victorian coastline in Australia and believe that improved assessment can assist policy makers of any maritime nation to make better informed decisions.