Fisheries and Environmental Management Group (FEM), Department of Environmental Sciences, P.O. Box 65, FI-00014, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Economics and Society, Latokartanonkaari 9, FI-00790, Helsinki, Finland.
J Environ Manage. 2015 Aug 1;158:122-32. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.04.042. Epub 2015 May 14.
Large-scale oil accidents can inflict substantial costs to the society, as they typically result in expensive oil combating and waste treatment operations and have negative impacts on recreational and environmental values. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) offers a way to assess the economic efficiency of management measures capable of mitigating the adverse effects. However, the irregular occurrence of spills combined with uncertainties related to the possible effects makes the analysis a challenging task. We develop a probabilistic modeling approach for a CBA of oil spill management and apply it in the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic Sea. The model has a causal structure, and it covers a large number of factors relevant to the realistic description of oil spills, as well as the costs of oil combating operations at open sea, shoreline clean-up, and waste treatment activities. Further, to describe the effects on environmental benefits, we use data from a contingent valuation survey. The results encourage seeking for cost-effective preventive measures, and emphasize the importance of the inclusion of the costs related to waste treatment and environmental values in the analysis. Although the model is developed for a specific area, the methodology is applicable also to other areas facing the risk of oil spills as well as to other fields that need to cope with the challenging combination of low probabilities, high losses and major uncertainties.
大规模的石油事故会给社会造成巨大的成本，因为它们通常需要昂贵的石油扑救和废物处理作业，并且对娱乐和环境价值产生负面影响。成本效益分析（CBA）提供了一种评估能够减轻不利影响的管理措施的经济效率的方法。然而，由于溢油事件的不规则发生以及与可能的影响相关的不确定性，使得分析成为一项具有挑战性的任务。我们为石油泄漏管理的 CBA 开发了一种概率建模方法，并将其应用于波罗的海的芬兰湾。该模型具有因果结构，涵盖了大量与石油泄漏的实际描述以及海上石油扑救作业、海岸线清理和废物处理活动相关的成本有关的因素。此外，为了描述对环境效益的影响，我们使用了来自意愿调查的相关数据。结果鼓励寻求具有成本效益的预防措施，并强调在分析中纳入与废物处理和环境价值相关的成本的重要性。尽管该模型是为特定区域开发的，但该方法也适用于面临溢油风险的其他地区以及需要应对低概率、高损失和重大不确定性的组合的其他领域。
