GIS Based Oil Spill Risk Assessment Model for the Niger Delta’s Vegetation

摘要

Frequent oil spills in the Niger Delta have severely influenced the environment in oil production andtransportation areas. Vegetation degradation is one of the remarkable results of oil spills in the region.Hence, GIS was used to build an Oil Spill Risk Assessment Model for Vegetation (OSRAMV) in thesouthern part of the Rivers state, mainly in the Bonny district to define areas under high levels of oil spillhazard and vegetation areas under high oil spill risk. Oil Spill Hazard Model (OSHM) was examined toensure its accuracy by recorded oil spill impacted areas; 71.6% of impacted areas pixels were insevere hazard areas. Whereas none of impacted areas were located in very low, or low oil spillhazard areas. The final OSRAMV showed that 66.5% of the examined oil spill sites were located inhigh risk areas.