@article {3093032,
	title = {Spatial and temporal assessment of oil spills in the Mediterranean Sea},
	journal = {Marine Pollution Bulletin},
	volume = {167},
	year = {2021},
	month = {2021/06/01/},
	pages = {112338},
	abstract = {Ship-generated oil pollution is a significant threat to the Mediterranean Sea. We present a geostatistical analysis of oil spills using three databases for the Mediterranean Sea: REMPEC (1977{\textendash}2000) with 385 spills (17/year), ITOPF (1970{\textendash}2018) with 167 spills (3.5/year) and EMSA (2015{\textendash}2017) with 2066 detections (688/year). It was found that 88\% of spills reported by REMPEC occurred near coastline areas, while 65\% of the spills detected by EMSA occurred within a range of 22{\textendash}100~km from the coastline. At the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) level, EMSA oil spills densities were positively correlated with shipping and port activity. We conclude that there is a need to develop an open-access database of oil spills that will be based on both reports and remote sensing acquisition methods. Such a database will facilitate more efficient enforcement of international conventions in offshore areas and will increase the likelihood of effective response.},
	keywords = {Geostatistics, Mediterranean Sea, Oil pollution, Shipping, Spatial analysis},
	isbn = {0025-326X},
	author = {Polinov, Semion and Bookman, Revital and Noam Levin}
}
