Maritimes Regional Application of the National Framework for Assessing the Vulnerability of Biological Components to Ship-Source Oil Spills in the Marine Environment

An important contribution to fulfilling Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) commitment in oil spill response planning was the development of a framework for the rapid assessment of vulnerability of marine biological components to ship-source oil spills that fall under the DFO mandate, contributing to the ecological aspects of the ‘Resources at Risk’ component of oil spill planning and response. A National framework, developed in 2017 (Thornborough et al. 2017) – uses a structured approach for assessing and screening biological components expected to be most affected by a ship-source oil spill, utilizing a suite of criteria to assess vulnerability. The framework identified two key phases for assessing vulnerabilities of marine components: Grouping of biological components (sub-groups) based upon shared characteristics related to oil vulnerability; and Scoring of biological sub-groups against ecological vulnerability criteria (Exposure, Sensitivity, and Recovery) to identify those most vulnerable to oil using a binary scoring system. For validation purposes, the National framework stressed the need to apply and test the framework in a variety of marine aquatic environments across…

Publisher

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Resources

4

Catalogue metadata updated

2026-03-24