Emergency Response Strategies for Vulnerable Communities to Manage an Oil Spill in The Ocean

• Grant number: 24/11097-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: May 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Oceanography - Chemical Oceanography
• Principal Investigator: Elisabete de Santis Braga da Graça Saraiva
• Grantee: Érica Machado da Silva Guerreiro
• Host Institution: Instituto Oceanográfico (IO). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The challenges associated with oil spills in the ocean have been many, especially in a continental country such as Brazil, which is why it is important to have well-planned action, which is the reason it is important to have a very well-planned response that all agencies cooperate together for an immediate and coordinated response. Even after the latest oil accident on the Brazilian coast in 2019, there is still a lack of safety measures on the part of authorities regarding prevention actions, making it urgent to realize the importance of a technical staff trained in emergency management for the efficiency of the offshore and coastal contingency structure, in addition to the necessity to implement an articulated communication between authorities and society for the purposes of coordination and integration in the event of major disasters. Based on this context, this project aims to propose practical and technological contingency and remediation actions to contribute to appropriate safety measures for the most vulnerable communities and those with particular access problems, in order to enable them to defend themselves in an extreme emergency situation related to an oil spill on the Brazilian coast. It is hoped that the study will promote advances in knowledge and contributions to the planning of protection and remediation measures in order to avoid potential risks of ecosystems' contamination and health of local population in case of an oil accident. Even with the instances and scalar aspects of emergency response strategies (such as the National Contingency Plan, Individual Emergency Plan and Area Plan), there is a need for an action plan focused on coastal areas and special attention to small cities and communities with less resources and infrastructure. The aim is to understand the impacts and how population reacted to the circumstances of the latest oil spill on the Brazilian coast in 2019, as well as the response strategies achieved from the measures taken by local authorities, in order to evaluate the efficiency of these actions and propose complementary plans to deal with an oil accident that were not applied and can be implemented. Although extremely important, the PNC is only used in major national incidents and Ibama still needs a specific official protocol to protect such vulnerable areas, so it is important to have socio-environmental contributions to improve actions. In this sense, this project aims to contribute to increasing the number of tools available for emergency response in the event of an oil accident in the coastal area in order to protect the most sensitive environments and vulnerable population, based on studies in the affected locations, a review of specific documents for these purposes and contacts with international agencies that work on mitigation and urgent actions in the event of oil accidents on different scales and sources. This proposal will have logistical support from a larger project in which this research is included, which is multidisciplinary and includes oceanographic, ecotoxicological, ecological integrity, technological and health aspects, in order to provide data that will be part of the products generated in this proposal.