Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract As of August 2019, several oil slicks reached the Brazilian coast, compromising local ecosystems and the economy of coastal communities. In this context, this study aimed to assess seafood quality at the Canavieiras Extractive Reserve (RESEX), located in the state of Bahia, Northeastern Brazil, by determining polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) concentrations in local biota following the oil spill. It was designed and carried out in a participatory manner, involving RESEX fishers, shellfish and crab gatherers and managers, as well as university researchers. A total of 72 biota samples were analyzed, and the sum of the 16 priority USEPA PAHs ranged from less than the limit of detection to 30.81 ng g-1 (w.w.). When also considering alkylated compounds, concentrations ranged from 3.53 to 360.75 ng g-1 (w.w.). No sample contained PAHs concentrations suggestive of human consumption risks. No difference in PAHs concentrations between the six studied areas and regarding different biota feeding habits were observed. Higher PAHs concentrations were generally noted in molluscs, as these organisms do not have enzyme systems capable of metabolizing these compounds. This initiative demonstrated the feasibility of participatory construction resulting in a study concerning valued species to local communities, ensuring a contribution to local fishing and marketing activities.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The crude oil spill on the Brazilian coast in 2019 is considered the largest environmental disaster of this nature in the country. It had important repercussions on the environment and on the living and health conditions of the population, particularly artisanal fishermen, intensifying the vulnerability process, causing situations of injustice and environmental conflicts with negative repercussions on the territories. Aiming to analyze this environmental conflict and its impacts on environment and health of the affected population, the study applied the method proposed by the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. It analyzed open-access documents made available by governmental and non-governmental organizations, and publications in newspapers of wide circulation. The data obtained allowed to characterize the oil spill and the identification of the socioeconomic, health, and environmental impacts published in the Atlas. There was a deepening of the vulnerability of the people of the waters, influencing the social determination of the health-disease process. The lack of sustainability of the current development model pushes for building environmental and health diagnoses in order to take remedial measures in disasters such as oil spills. EJAtlas is a way to debate situations of environmental injustice and give voice to historically oppressed communities.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In August 2019, the Northeast coast of Brazil was impacted by an extensive oil spill, with immediate effects on marine and coastal ecosystems and significant impacts on tourism and food security. The human dimension of those impacts also includes the loss of cultural ecosystem services (CES); the non-material benefits stemming from strongly rooted cultural practices and relationships with nature. CES are of great importance for local residents and visitors that flock to Brazilian iconic beaches, however, they are difficult to measure using traditional assessment methods due to their subjective and non-tangible nature. Here, we use a big data approach to assess and map the loss of CES in the Northeast coast of Brazil caused by the recent oil spill. We analysed 2,880 digital images (published on the image sharing platform Flickr) taken before and during the disaster in affected locations, using a combination of automated techniques. Results showed a sharp decline in the number of users posting photos of locations affected by oil spill, and a decline in photos representing landscape and cultural appreciation. Our big data approach provides a fast and automated way to assess CES at large spatial scales that can be used to monitor the social impacts of environmental disasters.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Oil pollution has significantly contributed to coral reef decline in the last five decades and a major oil spill reached Brazilian tropical coast in August 2019. Here, we report the first evidence of direct crude oil contact from that spill on reef coral species, and evaluate the effects of this disaster on coral vitality and benthic assemblage structure on the largest coastal marine protected area (MPA Costa dos Corais) in Brazil. We compared benthic cover in reefs with and without oil and monitored Siderastrea stellata colonies 90 days after oil contact. Oil stains between 0.5 and 150 cm were found in two of the 17 reef sites investigated. Multivariate analyses did not detect significant differences between oiled and non-oiled reefs and there was no evidence of S. stellata health deterioration. These results indicate minimal acute effects on coral vitality and intertidal reef benthic assemblage structure. Future studies should investigate oil effects on specific aspects of coral biology as growth, reproduction, bleaching susceptibility and metagenomics which can deteriorate over longer time frames, and we recommend long-term coral reef monitoring to support a robust assessment and mitigation of chronic oil impacts.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract On August 30, 2019, in the state of Paraíba, an oil spill of unprecedented characteristics reached Brazil, affecting 1009 coastal locations, in eleven states (from Maranhão to Rio de Janeiro). The objective of this paper is to present a description of the incident scenario from the perspective of the Brazilian Federal Government. Furthermore, the analysis of its performance regarding the actions and tools employed focuses on the role of the Federal Environment Agency (Ibama). Ibama led the Federal Government’s initiatives for managing the spill when its true scale was yet unknown. Once the emergency was officially recognized, the Government acted through the implementation of the National Contingency Plan for Oil Pollution Incidents in Waters Under National Jurisdiction. From then on, the spill management was under the command of the “Grupo de Acompanhamento e Avaliação” (composed of Ibama, the Brazilian Petroleum Agency, and the Navy). The performance of other entities was crucial to make response actions feasible. Management tools were added to help the standardization, speed, and consolidation of the information collected in the field. Considering the specificities and limitations imposed by this event, we conclude that the Federal management of the spill was adequate, although opportunities for improvement were identified.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Social media data is a rich source of information to assess human activities in catastrophic events. Here, we use social media data to understand how the 2019 Brazilian oil spill influenced social attitudes. Data were collected from the globally popular Instagram platform between August 1, 2019 and March 1, 2020. First, we manually identified the 5 most popular (portuguese language) hashtags related to the oil spill #oleonononordeste; #desastreambiental; #marsemoleo; #sosnordeste; #marsempetroleo. In the sequence, we collected information on captions, post metadata and users associated with posts retrieved using the selected hashtags. We identified a total of 7,413 posts. These posts were grouped in topics: government (47.76%), protest (24.37%), volunteers (24.45%), biodiversity (0.003%), origin (0.006%), tourism (0.008%) and others (0.016%). All topics had the peak of posts in October and November 2019. Nevertheless, interest in the oil spill was temporary, with most posts appearing in the 2-4 months after the beginning of the disaster. Our findings illustrate the enormous potential of using social media data for understanding and monitoring human engagement with environmental disasters, but also suggest that conservationists and environmental groups may only have a limited ‘window of opportunity’ to engage and mobilize public support for remediation and restoration efforts.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In 2019 an oil spill spread over more than 4000 km of the Brazilian coastline. Monitoring programs that allow for the evaluation of potential impacts on communities and ecosystems and their recovery through time are needed and rely on baseline information previous to the oil spill. Here we compiled qualitative and quantitative data available from 8 studies on fish and benthic species from different habitats of Rio Grande do Norte (RN) from 2007 to 2018. We assessed the number of species from different locations and compiled information on conservation status and human use. We mapped the study areas and habitats and overlapped them with those affected by the oil spill. The RN state has a high diversity of fish (175 species) and benthic species (285 species), of which more than half of fish (52%) and 2% of benthic species are threatened and 72,8% of fish and 7,9% of benthic species are of commercial interest. Information of most habitats is still poorly known (i.e.majority ofthe available data are from unique and punctual sampling), which may weaken future evaluations of the real impact of the oil spill. Nonetheless, it is possible to design reliable monitoring based on our dataset, persistent contamination and future loss of diversity.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The crude oil that reached the Brazilian coast in 2019 was the most significant environmental disaster ever recorded in Brazilian marine waters, with severe ecological and economic repercussions not fully dimensioned and understood. One consequence of this kind of oil spill is the absorbed dose delivered to marine organisms. The biota exposure to radiation can introduce consequences that range from fertility decrease to death of exposed population. Therefore, the current study aims to use the ICRP reference organisms (flatfish, crab, and brown seaweed) to assess marine biota exposure due to uranium and thorium series radiation. The oil spill scenario, as well as the reference biota, were simulated in MCNP. Thorium series stood out for presenting a significant contribution to the dose. Furthermore, it was noticed that a remedial action capable of removing Tl-208 would significantly decrease the effects of radiation on marine biota. Finally, dose conversion coefficients for both uranium and thorium series were obtained as oil activity concentration functions. The results obtained here can be used in an oil spill event along with other worldwide recognized models. In addition, the dose coefficients can be used strategically to assess the maximum exposure time for emergency oil control, removal, and mitigation.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Since the emergence in August 2019 of portions of varying sizes of crude oil on several beaches in the Northeast region of Brazil, various studies have been conducted to identify the source of the disaster and estimate the damage caused. This article aims to contribute to this scientific effort in order to describe an extensive mapping that used Remote Sensing data of the impacted areas and its correlation with socioeconomic typology of the municipalities directly affected. The research was based on the list of 201 oiled beaches published on October 28th, 2019 in Technical Note from the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA, 2019). Applying the Supervised Classification to images from the MSI/Sentinel-2 sensor, a methodology for beach cartography was defined, then geographical sections were subsequently classified and quantified by thematic classes. This thematic mapping fostered to obtain a proxy of the possible impacted areas up to that date, generating an “Atlas of Beaches Affected by Oil” with 402 maps of the affected beaches, which is available on the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation website. This mapping is unprecedented and it becomes important for the environmental monitoring of these areas. This article was prepared from a request for the special edition of the AABC journal.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In 2019, a massive oil spill impacted coastal ecosystems in eleven Brazilian states; these ecosystems were diverse with regard to their different geological settings (sandy beaches, rocky coasts, estuaries, tidal flats, mangroves, and reef systems) being impacted. Here, we present a temporal analysis on the occurrence of remaining contaminants on three beaches (Paiva, Itapuama, and Enseada) of the Cabo de Santo Agostinho City, Pernambuco State. The approach focuses on the systematic mapping of residues, collection of sediment samples, photographic documentation, and qualitative microscopic analysis. Grain size, calcium carbonate, and total organic matter content analyses provided a faciological and energetic characterization of the environment. The objective was to verify the relationship between the remaining contaminants and the geological setting. The results showed intense weathering of the remaining oil residues due to the high energy environment. We found tar balls reworked by seasonal erosion on the three beaches and no tar residues in shallow subsurface sediments. A large quantity of tar residues remains on rock surfaces in Itapuama Beach, which bears the higher permanence of contamination because it is less affected by weathering and beach erosion. This investigation allowed for an impact assessment of the geological-morphological characteristics of the beaches.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract In 2019, an oil spill of unprecedented dimensions and unknown source reached the Brazilian coast. Such incident, which occurred somewhere in the ocean and was detected only when the first oil patches reached the beaches in the northeastern region, is recognized as one of the most serious oil spills in the country. From the chromatographic analysis of the oily residues using n-alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and oil biomarkers, it was possible to characterize their coverage. The results confirmed that an oil of the same specification reached a length of coastline higher than 3,000 kilometers. However, were also found oily residues that did not match with the product involved in that incident, evidencing the occurrence of different discharges. This study documents the extension of the affected coastline during the incident and assesses the possible origin of such different oils from their geochemical characteristics by selecting 21 samples from more than 300 samples previously collected and analyzed during the response actions. The unexpected occurrence of these residues suggest chronic events. The results highlighted that unrelated oily residues were found even in a region far from the coast, indicating that discharges of oil in the open sea occur more regularly than initially expected.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Three SAR-derived observations of dark surface patches along the Northeastern Brazilian coastline by the end of 2019 were misreported in the Brazilian media as oil spill-related. Unfortunately, these observations were misled by false positives or look-alikes. Therefore, this paper aims to technically evaluate these look-alike classes by analyzing image attributes found to be helpful to the identification of ocean targets, including oil spills, rain cells, biofilms, and low wind conditions. We use image augmentation to extend our dataset size and create the probability density function curves. The processing includes image segmentation, optimal attribute extraction, and classification with random forest classifiers. Our results contrast with the open-source oil spill detection system and patch classifier methodology called “RIOSS.” Analysis of the feature probability density functions based on optimal attributes is promising since we could capture most of the false positive targets in the three SAR-reported images in 2019. The only exception was the biofilm slick observed on October 28th, where the RIOSS mistakenly classified this organic patch as a low wind region with oil spots. This pitfall is acceptable at this project stage since we had only five biogenic film samples to train the algorithm.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Many maritime disasters lead to oil pollution, which undermines ecosystem balance, human health, the prosperity of countries and coastal areas across borders, and people’s livelihoods. This is a problem that affects the whole world. Governments must strive to ensure that operations in the marine environment are safe and avoid oil pollution by adopting methods that anticipate future scenarios to mitigate the effects of this pollution when it occurs. This study investigates a method of managing contaminated coastal areas, aiming to contribute to the management of the environmental crisis caused by disasters through the use of online collaborative mapping by volunteer collaborators. Volunteer collaborators have been sending georeferenced data and photographs of locations affected by pollution. This information is processed and printed on a cartographic basis created by the web-mapping platform, Google MyMaps©. Photos of 90 locations were plotted on the map, and the pictures demonstrate that the oil slicks that reached the Brazilian coast had very different shapes and consistency. This research can contribute as a participatory monitoring tool during and after oil spills, promoting the oriented preservation of marine ecosystems through citizen science.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract During the last quarter of 2019, the beaches, mangroves, and estuaries of Northeast Brazil received an unprecedented volume of crude oil from the sea, which became the worst environmental disaster ever to reach the Brazilian coast. The oil, having reached the shores completely unnoticed, left both society and government agents completely clueless on (i) where the oil was coming from; (ii) how much oil was still in the ocean to reach the shorelines; and (iii) which beaches were going to be affected next! By exploring remote sensing data and ocean numerical modeling, along with oil dispersion chemistry on sea water, this study investigates the possible origin and path of the spill and whether it could have been detected from space. The oil dispersion modeling simulations performed for this investigation revealed a possible region and timing of the oil spill, also indicating the likelihood of it being advected toward the shoreline under the ocean surface.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract Oil spills, intrinsically related to the petroleum production chain, represent a risk to the marine environment and a potential threat to humans through seafood consumption. We revised the NE Brazil oil spill and other accidents along the Brazilian coast, with a focus on seafood contamination, covering topics such as bioaccumulation, bioaccessibility, and risk analysis. Comprehensive knowledge of the impacts of spills helps in the interpretation of the dynamics of hydrocarbons released into the sea, contributing to actions to control their negative impacts. Currently, no legal limits have been established permanently in Brazil for PAHs in seafood edible tissues.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The oil spill of unknown origin that hit the Brazilian coast in 2019 led to the first activation of the National Contingency Plan, outside the scope of an exercise. The Brazilian Navy, the Environmental Agency and the Oil Agency worked together during the oil spill emergency at the Federal level, as the plan´s Monitoring and Evaluation Group. However, the distinctive characteristics and proportions of the incident demanded unanticipated actions. Therefore, this work aims to analyze the response actions, to evaluate policies and procedures in place and to propose improvements for the future. The paper discusses the anonymous and voluntary feedback from 150 professionals, obtained during the event, through a structured online form. The results of the survey are compared to findings in official documents, especially the Incident´s Final Report, prepared by the Brazilian Navy. The conclusion is that the Incident Command System, used to manage and coordinate clean-up operations, provided a swift and coordinated response as the oil reached the shore of 11 states. In contrast, there is a need to review the legal framework, including the Decree that established the National Contingency Plan, revisit response manuals, improve liaison and enhance communication channels among different authorities in the Brazilian Government.

Resumo em Inglês:

Abstract The 2019 oil spill was the biggest in Brazilian history. Oil was found along more than 3,000 km of the Brazilian coastline, mainly in the Northeast, in more than 1,000 localities. This article analyzes the disaster’s damage using a sample of interviewers who were impacted - fishers, tourism and beach hawkers - distributed along 40 of the affected municipalities in the Northeast Region of Brazil. The socio-economic indicators obtained by the research show that the impacts were not homogeneous between the segments and cities researched. Localities specialized in tourism and with a workforce relatively more specialized in fishing were the most affected. Accordingly, the populations of fishers and beach hawkers suffered the most severe impacts in terms of income reduction and the sale of products. These agents report a negative impact of the disaster on their work activities of 73% (fishers) and 65% (beach vendors), while the lodging and food sectors reported losses in about 38% of the cases. The interviewees’ health indicators demonstrated that the volunteers at the oil spill clean- up suffered damage due to the exposure experienced, evidencing the public health emergency dimension of the disaster.