By Tim Culmer

MarineAware brings together a range of capabilities to provide vital decision support for responding to oil spills at sea. In addition to its in-built advanced dispersion and source modelling capabilities, it now also includes Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) datasets to help prioritise protection and clean-up of the areas which are most vulnerable from oil spills.

 The data is provided by 4 Earth Intelligence (4EI) who use the latest satellite technologies to remotely survey coastal areas, meaning data is always up to date. The integration of 4EI’s data highlights the versatility of the MarineAware platform, which is currently deployed in Malaysia as part of the EASOS Marine Watch service.

MarineAware aims to reduce or remove the need for expensive third-party consultancy when responding to oil spills by providing a fully integrated decision support tool through an intuitive web-based user interface. In this way, MarineAware aims to empower local organisations and authorities to respond quickly and cost-effectively to the threat of oil spills.

FEATURES & BENEFITS

• Reduce dependencies on third-party consultants with an easy-to-use, integrated oil spill response decision support tool
• Prioritise the deployment of mitigation and clean-up teams by using ESI data derived from detailed coastal surveys
• Coastal surveys are conducted remotely using satellite imagery to ensure up-to-date information is available when required
• Reduce overheads for oil spill modelling and decision support to increase efficiency and potentially respond to more oil spills
• Compatible with oil detection systems for seamless integration with existing capabilities
• Secure cloud-based system requires no infrastructure at the client’s end for rapid, low-cost deployment
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) business models mean that the system is appropriate for a range of budgets

DEVELOPMENT

As part of MarineAware’s continued development, 4EI’s ESI data will be utilised not just in the user interface, but also incorporated into the dispersion modelling to provide advanced capabilities such as context-driven probability. This type of modelling can give critical information on the vulnerability of specific environmentally sensitive assets, such as wildlife reserves, tourist beaches, and fisheries, to further facilitate readiness planning and the strategic deployment of resources during an incident.