Expert elicitation for deriving input data for probabilistic risk assessment of shipwrecks

The necessity of having a process in place for adequate risk assessment of shipwrecks that pose a threat to the marine environment is today internationally acknowledged. However, retrieving the desired data for such a risk assessment can prove challenging. One means of addressing this problem is to make use of experts' knowledge and experience. The purpose of this paper is therefore to present and analyse data for risk assessment of shipwrecks derived by expert elicitation. The main outcome is the experts' estimations of (i) the generic probability of an opening in a shipwreck due to the occurrence of a number of activities and (ii) estimations of the degree to which site-specific and wreck-specific indicators affect the probability of opening. Results show that the derived information is applicable in probabilistic shipwreck risk assessment and that the VRAKA framework now contains needed information for integrating generic and site-specific information using Bayesian updating.

Novel approach to ecotoxicological risk assessment of sediments cores around the shipwreck by the use of self-organizing maps

Marine and coastal pollution plays an increasingly important role due to recent severe accidents which drew attention to the consequences of oil spills causing widespread devastation of marine ecosystems. All these problems cannot be solved without conducting environmental studies in the area of possible oil spill and performing chemometric evaluation of the data obtained looking for similar patterns among pollutants and optimize environmental monitoring during eventual spills and possible remediation actions - what is the aim of the work presented. Following the chemical and ecotoxicological studies self-organising maps technique has been applied as a competitive learning algorithm based on unsupervised learning process. Summarizing it can be stated that biotests enable assessing the impact of complex chemical mixtures on the organisms inhabiting particular ecosystems. Short and simple application of biotests cannot easily explain the observable toxicity without more complex chemometric evaluation of datasets obtained describing dependence between xenobiotics and toxicological results.