CHAPTER 12
Arctic Coastal and Marine Environmental Monitoring
H. Goodwin and R. Palerud
ABSTRACT: Akvaplan-niva has participated in Norwegian, and international marine
field cruises from the North Sea to the Kara Sea, north west Russia, since 1989. During
this time Akvaplan-niva have collected a large amount of environmental data. An
environmental database has been designed and built to store this data, which is now
linked directly to GIS software ArcView, for retrieval and display. ArcView has been
customised for Environmental Impact Assessment studies based on the Pechora Sea.
Specific algorithms have been developed for computing risk assessment in the event of
environmental pollution and from a variety of human activities.
Background
Since 1992 Akvaplan-niva has participated in a number of joint international scientific
cruises to the Barents Sea, Svalbard, and the North West Russian Arctic (Fig. 1). The
cruises to the NW Russian Arctic have been in collaboration with Norwegian and
Russian partners such as the Norwegian Polar Institute and Murmansk Marine
Biological Institute (MMBI). Samples collected include surface sediments, core
sediments, fish samples, and water column profiles. The samples were later analysed for
various contaminants including a large range of heavy metals, PCBs, and PAHs. These
efforts resulted in the collection of a huge amount of data describing the environmental
state of parts of the Arctic that had previously been unavailable to western scientists.
It was clear that a well structured environmental database, and geographical
information system should be designed and built not only to store these data, but also
accommodate the possibility for spatial analysis of the data, and to be readily available
for risk assessments and environmental impact assessments in the future.
163
D.R. Green and S.D. King (eds.), Coastal and Marine Geo-Information Systems, 163–171.
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Arctic Coastal and Marine Environmental Monitoring
H. Goodwin and R. Palerud
ABSTRACT: Akvaplan-niva has participated in Norwegian, and international marine
field cruises from the North Sea to the Kara Sea, north west Russia, since 1989. During
this time Akvaplan-niva have collected a large amount of environmental data. An
environmental database has been designed and built to store this data, which is now
linked directly to GIS software ArcView, for retrieval and display. ArcView has been
customised for Environmental Impact Assessment studies based on the Pechora Sea.
Specific algorithms have been developed for computing risk assessment in the event of
environmental pollution and from a variety of human activities.
Background
Since 1992 Akvaplan-niva has participated in a number of joint international scientific
cruises to the Barents Sea, Svalbard, and the North West Russian Arctic (Fig. 1). The
cruises to the NW Russian Arctic have been in collaboration with Norwegian and
Russian partners such as the Norwegian Polar Institute and Murmansk Marine
Biological Institute (MMBI). Samples collected include surface sediments, core
sediments, fish samples, and water column profiles. The samples were later analysed for
various contaminants including a large range of heavy metals, PCBs, and PAHs. These
efforts resulted in the collection of a huge amount of data describing the environmental
state of parts of the Arctic that had previously been unavailable to western scientists.
It was clear that a well structured environmental database, and geographical
information system should be designed and built not only to store these data, but also
accommodate the possibility for spatial analysis of the data, and to be readily available
for risk assessments and environmental impact assessments in the future.
163
D.R. Green and S.D. King (eds.), Coastal and Marine Geo-Information Systems, 163–171.
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.