MSUO Information Technology and Geographical Information Systems: Common Protocols & Procedures. Report to the Marine Safety Umbrella Operation

The Marine Safety Umbrella Operation (MSUO) facilitates the cooperation between Interreg funded Marine Safety Projects and maritime stakeholders. The main aim of MSUO is to permit efficient operation of new projects through Project Cooperation Initiatives, these include the review of the common protocols and procedures for Information Technology (IT) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). This study carried out by CSA Group and the National Centre for Geocomputation (NCG) reviews current spatial information standards in Europe and the data management methodologies associated with different marine safety projects. International best practice was reviewed based on the combined experience of spatial data research at NCG and initiatives in the US, Canada and the UK relating to marine security service information and acquisition and integration of large marine datasets for ocean management purposes. This report identifies the most appropriate international data management practices that could be adopted for future MSUO projects

Conservation science in NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries: description and recent accomplishments

This report describes cases relating to the management of national marine sanctuaries in which certain scientific information was required so managers could make decisions that effectively protected trust resources. The cases presented represent only a fraction of difficult issues that marine sanctuary managers deal with daily. They include, among others, problems related to wildlife disturbance, vessel routing, marine reserve placement, watershed management, oil spill response, and habitat restoration. Scientific approaches to address these problems vary significantly, and include literature surveys, data mining, field studies (monitoring, mapping, observations, and measurement), geospatial and biogeographic analysis, and modeling. In most cases there is also an element of expert consultation and collaboration among multiple partners, agencies with resource protection responsibilities, and other users and stakeholders. The resulting management responses may involve direct intervention (e.g., for spill response or habitat restoration issues), proposal of boundary alternatives for marine sanctuaries or reserves, changes in agency policy or regulations, making recommendations to other agencies with resource protection responsibilities, proposing changes to international or domestic shipping rules, or development of new education or outreach programs. (PDF contains 37 pages.

Scenario analysis and disaster preparedness for port and maritime logistics risk management

System Dynamics (SD) modelling is used to investigate the impacts of policy interventions on industry actors’ preparedness to mitigate risks and to recover from disruptions along the maritime logistics and supply chain network. The model suggests a bi-directional relation between regulation and industry actors’ behaviour towards Disaster Preparedness (DP) in maritime logistics networks. The model also showed that the level of DP is highly contingent on forecast accuracy, technology change, attitude to risk prevention, port activities, and port environment

Fire Management on Container Ships. New Strategies and Technologies

Design and construction of container ships follow consolidated requirements, with standard consideration of fire management. Indeed, cargo fires can have important consequence on crewmembers and cargoes, as well as impacting coastal zone and marine environment. Innovative strategies include prevention of events and mitigation of consequences. Digital solutions, providing with situational pictures onboard and around the vessel are fundamental for new fire management solutions, seamless and integrated in o the vessel IT infrastructure, according to IMO regulations and the recent EMSA CARGOSAFE Report. The assessment of these solutions requires theoretical evaluation, validation activities in simulated environment and demonstration activities in real environments, with use cases to prove feasibility and benefits. This paper, after a review of traditional preventing and mitigating solutions against fire and an analysis of container ships fires, proposes applicable innovative technologies and operational measures, emerging problems for their potential implementation and requirements for virtual and real tests design

The safety case and the lessons learned for the reliability and maintainability case

This paper examine the safety case and the lessons learned for the reliability and maintainability case