Department of Geosciences, Mississippi State University, MS 39762, USA.
Sci Total Environ. 2016 Sep 15;565:663-671. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.097. Epub 2016 May 20.
Marine ecosystems are home to a host of numerous species ranging from tiny planktonic organisms, fishes, and birds, to large mammals such as the whales, manatees, and seals. However, human activities such as offshore oil and gas operations increasingly threaten marine and coastal ecosystems, for which there has been little exploration into the spatial and temporal risks of offshore oil operations. Using the Gulf of Mexico, one of the world's hottest spots of offshore oil and gas mining, as the study area, we propose a spatiotemporal approach that integrates spatial statistics and geostatistics in a geographic information system environment to provide insight to environmental management and decision making for oil and gas operators, coastal communities, local governments, and the federal government. We use the records from 1995 to 2015 of twelve types of hazards caused by offshore oil and gas operations, and analyze them spatially over a five year period. The spatial clusters of these hazards are analyzed and mapped using Getis-Ord Gi and local Moran's I statistics. We then design a spatial correlation coefficient matrix for multivariate spatial correlation, which is the ratio of the cross variogram of two types of hazards to the product of the variograms of the two hazards, showing a primary understanding of the degrees of spatial correlation among the twelve types hazards. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first application of spatiotemporal analysis methods to environmental hazards caused by offshore oil and gas operations; the proposed methods can be applied to other regions for the management and monitoring of environmental hazards caused by offshore oil operations.
海洋生态系统是众多物种的家园，从微小的浮游生物、鱼类和鸟类，到鲸鱼、海牛和海豹等大型哺乳动物。然而，人类活动，如近海石油和天然气作业，日益威胁着海洋和沿海生态系统，而对于近海石油作业的时空风险，人们的了解甚少。本研究以世界上最热门的近海石油和天然气开采区之一——墨西哥湾为研究区域，提出了一种时空方法，该方法将空间统计和地质统计学集成到地理信息系统环境中，为石油和天然气运营商、沿海社区、地方政府和联邦政府提供环境管理和决策的见解。我们使用了 1995 年至 2015 年期间 12 种由近海石油和天然气作业引起的灾害记录，并在五年期间对其进行了空间分析。使用 Getis-Ord Gi 和局部 Moran's I 统计量对这些灾害的空间聚类进行了分析和制图。然后，我们为多元空间相关设计了一个空间相关系数矩阵，它是两种灾害的交叉变差函数与两种灾害的变差函数的乘积的比值，初步了解了 12 种灾害之间的空间相关程度。据我们所知，这是首次将时空分析方法应用于近海石油和天然气作业引起的环境灾害；所提出的方法可以应用于其他地区，以管理和监测近海石油作业引起的环境灾害。
