Environmental Impacts
iMARE / sensoMare - An integrated system for marine environmental monitoring
The objective of iMARE is to contribute towards increasing the expertise held by scientists/authorities and by industry, with the aim of preventing potential environmental damage in marine areas where hydrocarbon exploitation activities are being performed.
The research project will integrate existing environmental technologies and aims at developing new methods with continuous monitoring of key environmental parameters. The new tools to be developed are expected to be of wide range application in particular in the Barents Sea and other sensitive offshore areas.
Planning of a long-term strategic research programme in the field of integrated marine environmental monitoring, “iMARE”, was initiated in June 2007. Until the end of 2009, a pre-project (Kjeilen-Eilertsen et al. 2009), and a sub-project, sensoMARE, addressing parts of the original iMARE concept has been carried out.
A main objective of the iMARE/sensoMARE 2009 activities has been to review and evaluate candidate techniques, platforms and instrumentation with a real potential as monitoring tools for petroleum industry discharges and operations in the southern Barents Sea (Goliat area).
Furthermore, it has been a goal to relate such new monitoring approaches to Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) strategies for the future, and also to visualize the necessary and important link between current biological effect measures such as biomarkers, biota available in the area and the likely discharge scenarios.
BIOSEA I JIP programme (2002-2004)
Biomarkers were evaluated and established as global tools for monitoring impacts of oil and gas activities offshore. Further, data were generated to be able to tie the selected biomarkers to risk evaluation. In order to achieve this it was necessary to study biomarker signals and biological fitness comparatively in laboratory oil exposures. This research covered laboratory studies with chronic oil exposures where biomarker signals and fitness effects were measured in model fish and in ecologically relevant species of bivalves, crustaceans and fish. Selected suites of biomarkers were field validated and field background levels were measured in wild caught animals.
BIOSEA II JIP Risk Assessment and Biomonitoring in the Arctic (2006-2009)
The objectives are to build a scientific basis for a risk based PW environmental management, and to define acceptance criteria and threshold levels for environmental effects and biomarker signals in Arctic waters.
Biota Guard Mongstad ( 2009-2010)
Real time online monitoring of the water column close to the outlet of the Mongstad refinery north of Bergen. Heart rate and valve gape behaviour from instrumented blue mussels were used as sensors and measures were taken during deployment. Additional measures were taken after deployment to evaluate the health of the mussels.
The major objective of the project was to assess the biosensors - pivotal in the Biota Guard monitoring unit – with respect to sensitivity to water quality changes, reproducibility of data and long term reliability.
Biota Guard Arctic ( 2009-2012)
The primary objective of the Biota Guard Arctic project, supported by RCN and the industry, is “to develop, test and demonstrate to the offshore oil industry an environmental effect monitoring system suitable for the Arctic region”. Expected outcome of the project is the successful construction of a new Arctic monitoring system, incorporating an array of new and established biological and physical sensors that will provide real time environmental information when remotely deployed in Arctic seas. This will provide a solid foundation for a deployable sensor platform that is an integrated part of the Biota Guard environmental monitoring system developed partly within a previous “Petromaks” supported JIP (2005 – 2008) and the Mongstad test project (2009).
The project is a BIP (user-owned industry project), managed by Biota Guard AS. IRIS Biomiljø, together with the Russian Academy of Science 'Scientific Center for Ecological Safety’ (SCES-RAS) in St. Petersburg, are main contributors to the research aspects of the project. The objective is to evaluate right time biological monitoring methods (biosensors), to develop them further and to test their capacity for monitoring offshore oil and gas operations in arctic seas. The focus of the research will be on establishing biosensors targeting Arctic crustacean species and habitats.
SIP Biosensor ( 2006 -2009)
Development of biosensors for real-time monitoring in the marine environment and possible integration with established methodologies (biomarkers, bioassays and chemical techniques).
Observation and Assessment of the Sea with In situ Systems ( 2009)
Establishment of project collaboration between IRIS and MBARI ( Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, USA), CEFAS ( UK) and the University of Gothenburg ( Sweden).
The aim of this collaboration was to prepare an application to the Research Council of Norway with the objective to:
- Develop and to optimize cutting-edge instruments ( SERS and ESP) for real time deployment on autonomous moorings in the vicinity of offshore installations in the Arctic region where existing/future industrial activities will necessitate right time environmental monitoring.
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