Characteristics of Ship Oil Spill Incidents in Zhejiang Coastal Area

This paper reviewed oil spill incidents in Zhejiang coastal waters and characteristics of these incidents were analysed from geographical and seasonal distributions. Both operational and accidental oil spill incidents were examined, and key factors on ship accidents were identified. It was found that traffic density may be an important contributor to the oil spill incidents as key majority of accidents happened in busy waterways of important ports, especially Ningbo-Zhoushan area. The most significant oil spill risks were associated with navigational hazards of collision and grounding. The findings could be very useful for developing oil spill risk control and pollutants recovery measures.