The Baltic Marine Atmosphere Protection Commission (HELCOM) seeks to get rid of illegal oil spills around the Baltic by 2021. Everything is supervised with the aid of aerial surveillance statistics put together by Baltic Ocean states. Considering the Finnish statistics for 2013, accomplishing this target appears possible.
Finland also records non-aerial findings
Additionally to aerial surveillance, the Finnish Border Guard and save services report oil spills in ports or near to shoreline. The entire quantity of all oil spill findings can also be decreasing. In 2013, Finnish government bodies discovered 50 oil spills. Usually, the spills were small in dimensions.
The Finnish Border Guard looks into all oil spills. An oil pollution fee could be enforced around the owner or manager of the vessel responsible for a spill. The Finnish Border Guard might also want to initiate a pre-trial analysis. In 2013, the Border Guard carried out nine research consequently of oil spills.
Worldwide cooperation and surveillance procedures
Finnish aircraft carried out roughly 625 hrs of aerial surveillance around the Baltic in 2013. Nearly all plane tickets happened within Finnish territory, with roughly a quarter of total flight time allocated to the territory of other nations. Aircraft from neighboring nations correspondingly carried out 230 hrs of aerial surveillance in Finnish territory.
Two oil spills discovered by Finnish aircraft were situated within the territory of Estonia and something in Swedish territory. Estonian surveillance plane tickets observed three oil spills on Finnish waters.
In 2013, Finnish government bodies also took part in surveillance procedures for that enhanced monitoring of oil spills on busy shipping lanes. A couple of these procedures were carried out around the Baltic and something around the North Ocean.
Worldwide mix-border cooperation in oil spill surveillance is essential, particularly around the narrow Gulf of Finland, where ships navigate around the border from the Finnish and Estonian economic zones.
Modern surveillance equipment and satellite images
Finnish, Swedish and Estonian surveillance aircraft have up-to-date their environment surveillance equipment recently. The up-to-date equipment allows the monitoring of shipping and in poor weather and darkness. A side-searching airborne radar (SLAR) can identify oil spills several a large number of kms from the surveillance plane's route. The aircraft will also be outfitted with products for that identification of ships.
Oil spills will also be supervised with the CleanSeaNet satellite image service from the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). In 2013, 215 satellite images were drawn in Finnish territory.
