Oil reaching the coast: Is Brazil on the route of international oceanic dumping?

Daniel Constantino Zacharias; Natália Machado Crespo; Natália Pillar da Silva; Rosmeri Porfirio da Rocha; Carine Malagolini Gama; Sergio B N Ribeiro E Silva; Joseph Harari

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.115624

Oil reaching the coast: Is Brazil on the route of international oceanic dumping?

Mar Pollut Bull. 2023 Nov:196:115624. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.115624. Epub 2023 Oct 21.

Authors

Daniel Constantino Zacharias¹, Natália Machado Crespo², Natália Pillar da Silva³, Rosmeri Porfirio da Rocha³, Carine Malagolini Gama³, Sergio B N Ribeiro E Silva⁴, Joseph Harari⁵

Affiliations

¹ Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, Laboratoire de Météorologie Physique (LaMP), F-63000 Clermont Ferrand, France. Electronic address: danizach@gmail.com.
² Department of Atmospheric Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, V Holešovičkách 747/2, 18 Prague, Czech Republic.
³ Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo, IAG/USP, Rua do Matão, 1226, São Paulo, SP, 05508-090, Brazil.
⁴ Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal.
⁵ Departamento de Oceanografia Física, Química e Geológica, Instituto Oceanográfico, Universidade de São Paulo, Praça do Oceanográfico, 191, São Paulo, SP, 05508-900, Brazil.

PMID: 37871459
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.115624

Abstract

After the oil spill disaster occurred in 2019, various events of tar balls reaching the Brazilian coast and archipelagos have been reported. The hypothesis here is that the oil/waste dumped in international waters by ships on-route to Cape of Good Hope is reaching the Brazilian coast. On that account, 30-year probabilistic simulations were used to estimate the probability of dumped oil residue reaching the Brazilian coast. The simulations considered three Zones following the South Atlantic route. The results have shown that up to 28.5 % of large ships could dump oil on-route. Inside the Brazilian Exclusive Economic Zone, the probability of dumped oil/waste reaching the coastline is about 62 % and quickly decreases for Dumping Zones 2 and 3. Equatorial and Northeast shores of Brazil are the most vulnerable to oceanic dumping when compared to other regions.

Keywords: Ocean pollution;South Atlantic Ocean routes; Oil dumping; Oil spill; Spill, transport and fate model (STFM); Tar balls.

MeSH terms

Brazil
Disasters*
Oceans and Seas
Petroleum Pollution* / analysis
Ships