Spatial planning of shipping and offshore activities in the Baltic Sea using Lagrangian trajectories

Abstract

The existence of quasi-persistent patterns of currents in various parts of the Baltic Sea and the presence of rapid pathways of current-driven transport opens a new way towards developing a technology that uses the marine dynamics for the reduction of environmental risks stemming from shipping and offshore and coastal engineering activities. The key benefit of this particular technology is an increase in the time for an adverse impact (for example an oil spill) to reach the coastal zone. The idea behind the approach is to identify areas of reduced risk, which are statistically safer for travel, in terms of the probability of the transport of accidental pollution to vulnerable areas. We show that in certain sea areas there exists a well-defined optimum location for dangerous activities (e.g., a route for tankers), deviation from which leads to a rapid increase in the risk to the environment. There exist also extensive areas where the probabilities of a coastal hit are very small and where there is considerable freedom in the choice of the location of potentially dangerous activities.