Marine Oil Spill Incidents from Sea-Going Tankers: An idiographic exploration of the spill effects on structure, culture and behaviour in risk and collective incident management

Abstract

The 1967 Torrey Canyon incident established that the transportation of persistent oil by sea is a significantly risky business with a potential for great environmental harm. The incident propelled the development of international conventions for standards of operation and payment of compensation to those affected by a tanker oil spill. Affectation has meant going beyond economic outcomes to encompass social and political outcomes particularly where there is a likelihood of severe environmental impact. The oil transportation risk today is therefore different from the risk thirty years ago. As a result the perception and roles of involved parties in managing the risks and incidents have also been affected. However, despite significant investment in plans and preparedness, this has not always brought about full social acceptance, and there has still been failure, indicating that risk management is more than preparedness. It is proposed that management and behaviour during incident management are factors that create uncertainties despite highly reliable systems. Established methodologies, on evaluating risk, risk management and incident management conceptually and contextually, have been somewhat limited in their ability to view behaviour as a risk factor with direct significance to the management of the risk, incident and society. The study constructs a narrative account of the structural facts and behavioural aspects in oil spill risks and incident management establishing connections between them. Exploration of both the outer-inner and inner-outer context is achieved by way of a case study of the context of tanker oil spills. Observations of behaviour are derived from the interviews with parties involved in risk and incident management and from participation in organised spill incident simulations (both computer-based and physical).

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record

ASCII CitationAtomBibTeXData Cite XMLDublin CoreDublin CoreEP3 XMLEndNoteHTML CitationHTML CitationHTML ListJSONMETSMODSMPEG-21 DIDLOpenURL ContextObjectOpenURL ContextObject in SpanRDF+N-TriplesRDF+N3RDF+XMLRIOXX2 XMLReferReference ManagerSimple Metadata