Intelligent computational techniques in marine oil spill management: A critical review

Effective marine oil spill management (MOSM) is crucial to minimize the catastrophic impacts of oil spills. MOSM is a complex system affected by various factors, such as characteristics of spilled oil and environmental conditions. Oil spill detection, characterization, and monitoring; risk evaluation; response selection and process optimization; and waste management are the key components of MOSM demanding timely decision-making. Applying robust computational techniques based on real-time data (e.g., satellite and aerial observations) and historical records of oil spill incidents may considerably facilitate decision-making processes. Various soft-computing and artificial intelligence-based models and mathematical techniques have been used for the implementation of MOSM’s components. This study presents a review of literature published since 2010 on the application of computational techniques in MOSM. A statistical evaluation is performed concerning the temporal distribution of papers, publishers’ engagement, research subfields, countries of studies, and selected case studies. Key findings reported in the literature are summarized for two main practices in MOSM: spill detection, characterization, and monitoring; and spill management and response optimization. Potential gaps in applying computational techniques in MOSM have been identified, and a holistic computational-based framework has been suggested for effective MOSM.