© Yannick Schutz / Arctic Council Secretariat A New Tool to Aid Oil Spill Clean Ups on Arctic Shorelines May 12, 2025ЗагрязнителиЧРЕЗВЫЧАЙНЫЕ СИТУАЦИИРабочая группа по предупреждению, готовности и ликвидации чрезвычайных ситуаций How Emergency Responders Can Use a New Analysis Tool for More Efficient Response Article by: Jessica Cook, Arctic Council Secretariat As activity in the Arctic increases, so does the risk of oil spills. To improve oil spill response in the Arctic, the Arctic Council’s Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response (EPPR) Working Group launched the Circumpolar Oil Spill Response Viability Analysis (COSRVA). The COSRVA has been an important project for EPPR to better understand the potential for different oil spill response systems to operate in the Arctic marine environment. Now, EPPR is adding a shoreline remediation component to the tool – the Shoreline COSRVA, or S-COSRVA for short. How does the tool work and who can find it most useful? Two experts involved with its development, Synnøve Lunde, Senior Advisor at the Norwegian Coastal Administration and Odd Willy Brude, Senior Principal Consultant at DNV, explain in this Q&A. What special considerations are there for oil spills on shorelines? Synnøve Lunde: Shorelines can vary a lot in the substances and characteristics that it’s made up of. There are various types of stone, sand, vegetation, as well as differing terrain that may be steep or flat. Shorelines may be shallow or deep. There are some that can only be reached from the sea or only from land. Shorelines may be close to or far from infrastructure and communities. This will vary a lot throughout the circumpolar Arctic. Shoreline cleanup is very time consuming and also a challenge because oil might hide between stones or in the vegetation. What is the S-COSRVA, and why is there a need for it? Synnøve Lunde: In the event of an oil spill, the S-COSRVA is meant to guide the user in finding the best equipment and system for the shoreline that’s affected. The tool includes 22 accepted and commonly used shoreline treatment options that it analyzes with respect to feasibility based on environmental factors of a particular location. It was developed for EPPR by DNV and Owens Coastal Consulting. The purpose of the S-COSRVA project is to better understand the viability and feasibility for different oil spill response options for various Arctic coastal environments and shorelines. By having this tool, the user can become familiarized with the shoreline in the area of responsibility and more quickly find the right clean up method based on its unique characteristics. Odd Willy Brude: The S-COSRVA is meant as a planning and decision support tool. It involves five separate analyses and outputs: Feasibility Analysis for Shoreline Treatment (FAST): feasible treatment options based on shore type and oil type scenarios Remote Viability Analysis (RVA): logistics and deployment viability from support centers to coastal locations Operational Systems Viability Analysis (OSVA): favorability of environmental parameters for operational systems for shoreline cleanup Coastal Deployment Viability Analysis (CDVA): environmental constraints to deploy operations support to a coastal location Shoreline Access Viability Analysis (SAVA): access and deployment favorability/constraints to a shoreline location The outputs from each of these analyses create a science-based rationale for planners and decision-makers that includes considerations of the consequences and tradeoffs associated with oil spill cleanup and treatment options.