Oil Spill Response Capability Assessment: Describing Tasks and Effects

Abstract: Oil spills require more or less significant response efforts to be controlled. While the frequency of severe oil spills has decreased, an increase in marine traffic is forecasted in the future. Research has found that capability to respond to adverse events is often understood and assessed based on resources, which in practice has shown to provide an insufficient understanding of the capability to respond to offshore oil spills. The study takes a point of departure from this problem and a potential solution found in theory, which proposes a new definition and description of capability including tasks and their effects in response to certain events, providing a better basis for decision-making. The study engages in a first step toward applying the capability description in the field of offshore oil spill response. By utilizing the experience and expertise of subject matter experts through interviews, and output from research and practice through a literature study, the research concludes on tasks and event parameters essential in describing oil spill response capability. Furthermore, inconclusive results on certain tasks and how to best describe their effect are discussed. Finally, broader methodological insight is presented on how to approach the capability description in practice, and the way forward for utilizing the research results and handling of the remaining uncertainties.