THE AUSTRALIAN OIL SPILL RESPONSE ATLAS PROJECT

摘要

Australia is among the top five shipping nations of the world based upon cargo and kilometres travelled.Australia also has vast,remote and environmentally sensitive coastlines ranging from tropical to subantarctic.Unfortunately shipping accidents and illegal discharges of oil and chemical pollutants into our marine environment do occur.To support spill response management in Australia,over the past four years the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has coordinated the development of a uniform and integrated national Oil Spill Response Atlas (OSRA) based upon an ArcView~R geographic information system (GIS).The main aims of the OSRA project were to:1.Develop a mutually agreed national GIS specification for the development of the digital atlas to assure consistency and compatibility Australia wide;2.Fast track the collation,capture and conversion of all relevant geographical and textual data into a standard digital GIS format for the majority of Australia's marine and coastal environments (particularly for highly sensitive environments such as,world heritage areas,and marine parks and reserves);and 3.Create a user-friendly series of GIS system tools specially designed for the particular needs of spill response managers,operational staff and environmental agencies.This paper highlights some of the advantages of GIS based systems for spill response management,the OSRA system development and features,as well as the GIS automation tools that assist spill response managers and operational personnel.