24
T. Soomere
The presented technology only answers a very particular question. After retrieving the solution, one has to combine the extracted knowledge with other important
factors that play a role in deciding an optimal ship route (such as potential extreme
loads along the route, the probability of fatigue damage, the fuel consumption along
the route, and the time to reach a harbour), etc., and that can be estimated using
well-known methods. Although the questions of (oil) pollution and of the accompanying environmental risks are of immense importance, generally a number of factors
with possibly different weights have to be taken into account in an industrial fairway
design or ship routing system.
There may be even several environmental objectives, not necessarily converging
but to be optimized jointly. For instance, the shore may be protected, but the fishing
grounds or some other sensitive, offshore, important and/or vulnerable areas may
suffer at the same time. The change of the fairways from the existing relatively long,
straight legs, with wide room for manoeuvring to short, narrow legs with numerous
bends may substantially increase the number of conflicting ship-ship encounters as
discussed in Chap. 11. Moreover if the fairways fluctuate seasonally, this may bring
even more confusion for mariners. This in turn may increase the probability of an
accident and finally the aggregated risk.
The wider importance of the technology is that, differently from various direct
methods of estimates of environmental risks, the resulting quantities and decisions
are associated with the points of release of adverse impacts. The key contribution
from such methods based on approximate solving of an inverse problem is the possibility of extracting and visualizing important information that usually remains concealed (and unused) in classical methods for the analysis of ocean currents.
Acknowledgements The underlying studies were performed in the framework of the BalticWay
project, which was jointly supported by the funding from the Estonian Science Foundation
and the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP 2007–2013) under grant
agreement No. 217246 made with the joint Baltic Sea research and development programme
BONUS. The follow-up research was partially supported by the Estonian Science Foundation
(grant No. 9125), targeted financing by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (grant
SF0140007s11), and by the European Regional Development Fund via support to the Centre of
Excellence for Non-linear Studies CENS.
References
Ambjörn C (2008) Seatrack web forecasts and backtracking of oil spills—an efficient tool to find
illegal spills using AIS. In: IEEE/OES US/EU-Baltic International Symposium, Tallinn, Estonia, May 27–29, 2008. IEEE Press, New York, pp 168–176
Andrejev O, Myrberg K, Alenius P, Lundberg PA (2004) Mean circulation and water exchange
in the Gulf of Finland—a study based on three-dimensional modelling. Boreal Environ Res
9:1–16
Andrejev O, Soomere T, Sokolov A, Myrberg K (2011) The role of spatial resolution of a threedimensional hydrodynamic model for marine transport risk assessment. Oceanologia 53:309–
334
Anonymous (2002) Results from the reader challenge: which MPA is the oldest? MPA News 3:6
T. Soomere
The presented technology only answers a very particular question. After retrieving the solution, one has to combine the extracted knowledge with other important
factors that play a role in deciding an optimal ship route (such as potential extreme
loads along the route, the probability of fatigue damage, the fuel consumption along
the route, and the time to reach a harbour), etc., and that can be estimated using
well-known methods. Although the questions of (oil) pollution and of the accompanying environmental risks are of immense importance, generally a number of factors
with possibly different weights have to be taken into account in an industrial fairway
design or ship routing system.
There may be even several environmental objectives, not necessarily converging
but to be optimized jointly. For instance, the shore may be protected, but the fishing
grounds or some other sensitive, offshore, important and/or vulnerable areas may
suffer at the same time. The change of the fairways from the existing relatively long,
straight legs, with wide room for manoeuvring to short, narrow legs with numerous
bends may substantially increase the number of conflicting ship-ship encounters as
discussed in Chap. 11. Moreover if the fairways fluctuate seasonally, this may bring
even more confusion for mariners. This in turn may increase the probability of an
accident and finally the aggregated risk.
The wider importance of the technology is that, differently from various direct
methods of estimates of environmental risks, the resulting quantities and decisions
are associated with the points of release of adverse impacts. The key contribution
from such methods based on approximate solving of an inverse problem is the possibility of extracting and visualizing important information that usually remains concealed (and unused) in classical methods for the analysis of ocean currents.
Acknowledgements The underlying studies were performed in the framework of the BalticWay
project, which was jointly supported by the funding from the Estonian Science Foundation
and the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP 2007–2013) under grant
agreement No. 217246 made with the joint Baltic Sea research and development programme
BONUS. The follow-up research was partially supported by the Estonian Science Foundation
(grant No. 9125), targeted financing by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (grant
SF0140007s11), and by the European Regional Development Fund via support to the Centre of
Excellence for Non-linear Studies CENS.
References
Ambjörn C (2008) Seatrack web forecasts and backtracking of oil spills—an efficient tool to find
illegal spills using AIS. In: IEEE/OES US/EU-Baltic International Symposium, Tallinn, Estonia, May 27–29, 2008. IEEE Press, New York, pp 168–176
Andrejev O, Myrberg K, Alenius P, Lundberg PA (2004) Mean circulation and water exchange
in the Gulf of Finland—a study based on three-dimensional modelling. Boreal Environ Res
9:1–16
Andrejev O, Soomere T, Sokolov A, Myrberg K (2011) The role of spatial resolution of a threedimensional hydrodynamic model for marine transport risk assessment. Oceanologia 53:309–
334
Anonymous (2002) Results from the reader challenge: which MPA is the oldest? MPA News 3:6