Practical risk assessment tool for the frequently transported chemicals at the Gulf of Mexico ports

摘要

Seaports have to process and maintain numerous dangerous chemicals every day because of the increase in the maritime transportation of these chemicals. Since the location of seaports is close to the cities, they pose a serious threat to the public as well as their immediate environment. However, public and environmental risks of dangerous chemicals are different. To rank risk scores of chemicals for public health, three types of effects have been evaluated. They are acute, chronic and sub-chronic effects. On the other hand, to rank risk scores of chemicals for environment, hazard scores for bioaccumulation, aquatic toxicity, and chronic aquatic toxicity have been calculated. More than 600 of frequently transported chemicals were prioritised for the 14 ports at the Gulf of Mexico (GM). Ports were selected based on their annual cargo volume in 2016. The top 11 substances were presented according to their public and environment risk scores. In addition, a Java-platform software tool with user-defined properties (congestion, visibility, and annual tonnage of chemicals) was developed to display the public and environmental health risk scores in case of a chemical spills. It is believed that such a tool can help port authorities and workers better understand, prevent, and take immediate actions on chemical accident.