Guidelines
A major deliverable of the PREMIAM
programme are the post-spill monitoring guidelines that will ensure
best practice is followed for post spill monitoring and impact
assessment.
The guidelines werer published in November 2011 and are
available to download.
The guidelines include content on the following:
Defining a monitoring programme
- When do we need to monitor?
- Why do we monitor?
- What do we monitor?
- Where do we monitor?
- How frequently do we monitor?
Implementing a monitoring programme: How do we monitor?
- Immediately, identify and access any pre-existing baseline
data
- Immediately, collect samples and store to provide a
baseline
- Survey Design
- Sampling strategies and methods
- Statistical considerations
- Chain of custody
- Transport and storage
- Sample preparation considerations
- Chemical analytical methods
- Ecological monitoring and methods
- Terrestrial martime vegetation
- Saltmarshes
- Seagrass beds
- Intertidal sediments
- Rocky shores
- Lagoons
- Subtidal sediments
- Subtidal rock
- Plankton
- Fish
- Seabirds
- Inshore water birds
- Wetland birds
- Seals
- Otters
- Cetaceans
- Ecotoxicology in post-spill monitoring
- Taint-testing
- Affected birds
- Quality control considerations
- Impacts on human health
- When to stop monitoring
- Compensation for oil spill damage
- The Environmental Damage Regulations
Appendices:
- List of projects established under SEEEC to study the impact of
the Sea Empress oil spill and the recovery of
affected areas
- Uptake and loss of PAH in shellfish following the Sea
Empress oil spill in 1996
- Typical questions that may be asked at the start of an
ecological damage assessment process for an oil or chemical
incident
- Sampling
- Chemical fingerprinting
- A review of hydrocarbon-induced impacts on microbial
communities
- Seabird carcase analysis - advice
- Assessing marine invertebrate communities