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的主要担忧。监管机构和科学界也不确定在不同环境中清理漏油时采用哪种方法是最好的。需要在现实的实地情况下提高清理程序的有效性，以弥补这些重大的知识差距。这里提议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、国家科学研究院和国际可持续发展-实验湖地区研究所(IISD-ELA)的研究人员进行。它将包括一个大型的多阶段项目，以检查溢油的命运和行为，并比较淡水环境中的溢油清理方法。该项目包括行业、政府、原住民和社区团体的参与，并将量化泄漏到淡水环境中的石油的影响(即生态、社会和经济价值)，包括损失的生态系统服务。检查淡水系统中当前溢油清理方法的有效性和有效性是该项目的一个关键组成部分。目前许多清除溢油的策略都侧重于机械清除；然而，这可能会对生态造成破坏，并且经济代价高昂。拟议项目的目标是确定物理、化学和生物溢油清理方法在不同海岸线环境中的相对有效性。小型漏油模型将被用来检验不同清理方法在天然北方湖泊封闭区域清除残余石油和维持生态系统功能的能力。将在第一年进行的工作将作为一项试点实验，旨在确定第二年将在全面实地研究中测试的石油产品。通过在第三年和第四年监测所含环境，将量化受影响地区的生态恢复以及采用不同修复方法应对泄漏的社会和经济影响。优化应用于漏油的修复策略将显著提高响应效率，并更快地恢复生态系统服务，从而使加拿大人受益。

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.