Freshwater oil spill remediation study at the IISD-experimental lakes area: (The FOReSt Project)

石油泄漏对环境的影响是加拿大公众关注的一个主要问题。监管机构和科学界也不确定在不同的设施中清理漏油时最好采用哪种方法。需要在实际的实地情况下提高清理程序的效力，以弥补这些重大的知识差距。这里提出的合作研究将由来自马尼托巴大学、卡尔加里大学、麦吉尔大学、国家科学研究所和国际可持续发展研究所-实验湖区（IISD-ELA）的研究人员进行。它将包括一个多阶段的大型项目，以检查泄漏石油的命运和行为，并比较淡水环境中的泄漏清理方法。该项目包括工业、政府、原住民和社区团体的参与，并将量化影响（即，生态、社会和经济价值（从丧失的生态系统服务中获得的价值）。该项目的一个关键组成部分是审查目前淡水系统中溢油清理方法的有效性和影响。目前，许多清除溢油的策略都集中在机械清除上;然而，这可能会破坏生态，经济代价高昂。拟议项目的目标是确定不同海岸线环境中物理、化学和生物溢油清理方法的相对有效性。小规模的模型石油泄漏将被用来检查不同的清理方法的能力，以消除残留的石油和维护生态系统功能的封闭地区的一个自然的北方湖泊。第一年进行的工作将作为一项先导试验，目的是确定第二年进行全面实地研究时要测试的石油产品。受影响地区的生态恢复，以及采用不同补救方法应对泄漏的社会和经济影响，将通过监测第3年和第4年的封闭环境来量化。优化适用于石油泄漏的补救战略将使加拿大人受益，大大提高反应效率，更快地恢复生态系统服务。

Environmental impacts of oil spills are a major concern for the Canadian public. Regulators and the scientificcommunity are also uncertain which methods are best to employ when cleaning up oil spills in differentenvironments. Improving effectiveness of clean-up procedures under realistic field situations is required toaddress these significant knowledge gaps. The collaborative research being proposed here will be conducted byresearchers from the Universities of Manitoba, Calgary, McGill, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifiqueand the International Institute for Sustainable Development-Experimental Lakes Area (IISD-ELA). It willconsist of a large multi-phased project to examine the fate and behaviour of spilled oil, and to compare spillclean-up methods in a freshwater environment. The project includes participation from industry, government,First Nations and community groups, and will quantify impacts (i.e., ecological, social and economic valuefrom lost ecosystem services) of oil spilled into freshwater environments. Examining effectiveness, andimpacts, of current oil spill clean-up methods in freshwater systems is a key component of the project. Manycurrent strategies for removing spilled oil focus on mechanical removal; however, this can be ecologicallydamaging and economically costly. The goal of the proposed project is to determine relative effectiveness ofphysical, chemical and biological oil spill clean-up methods in different shoreline environments. Small-scalemodel oil spills will be used to examine the ability of different cleanup methods to remove residual oil andmaintain ecosystem function in enclosed regions of a natural boreal lake. The work to be conducted in Year 1will serve as a pilot experiment which aims to determine the oil product to be tested in the full-scale field studyin Year 2. Ecological recovery of the affected areas, together with social and economic impacts ofincorporating different remediation approaches for responding to spills will be quantified through monitoringthe contained environments in Year 3 and 4. Optimizing remediation strategies applied to oil spills will benefitCanadians by significantly improving response efficiencies and restoring ecosystem services more quickly.