Shoreline oiling from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

TLDR

The study builds a comprehensive database of shoreline oiling exposure from the Deepwater Horizon spill and introduces simplified oil exposure classes for beaches and wetlands to support exposure and injury quantification. The authors compiled a spatial database of shoreline segments with habitat, oiling category, and timeline attributes, and used it to develop simplified exposure classes and generate maps and summary statistics. The database shows 2113 km of shoreline oiled—an increase of 19% over prior estimates—and provides maps and statistics that illustrate the extensive spatial distribution of DWH oil exposure.

Abstract

We build on previous work to construct a comprehensive database of shoreline oiling exposure from the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) spill by compiling field and remotely-sensed datasets to support oil exposure and injury quantification. We compiled a spatial database of shoreline segments with attributes summarizing habitat, oiling category and timeline. We present new simplified oil exposure classes for both beaches and coastal wetland habitats derived from this database integrating both intensity and persistence of oiling on the shoreline over time. We document oiling along 2113km out of 9545km of surveyed shoreline, an increase of 19% from previously published estimates and representing the largest marine oil spill in history by length of shoreline oiled. These data may be used to generate maps and calculate summary statistics to assist in quantifying and understanding the scope, extent, and spatial distribution of shoreline oil exposure as a result of the DWH incident.