Enhancing operational safety in offshore and inshore operations

Stakeholders involved in enhancing safety in offshore and onshore operations includes fishery and aquaculture agencies, port authorities and public bodies with competence on safety at sea (coastguards) and establishing regulations and standards. Designers and boat-builders have also a role in ensuring safety of vessels and other marine installations, such as fish farms or port structures. A wide participatory approach, involving local communities, is recommended to increase awareness on safety matter. A Holistic approach is especially recommended by FAO, highlighting that safety for fishermen should not be addressed only through government activities but also through bottom-up activities in a coordinated manner.

A clear and site specific identification of key climate risks and the understanding of safety consequences are among the main factors that helps in selecting the most proper adaptation measure to improve operational safety. Indeed, common barriers for this adaptation option refer to the need for better evidence and confidence in climate change projections and impacts. Confidence in climate change projection is especially required to properly consider the risks related to climate change among many other risks that affect the sector and to make business to invest in climate change adaptation. Moreover, the long-time frame of climate change projection can be poorly compatible with the shorter investment time-frames of maritime business.

This option include measures that can be implemented with little resource implications (e.g. adoption of basic safety equipment, small adjustments of infrastructure to increase resilience of onshore operations) or with major resource, for example in case of elevation or relocation of processing sites or seaports, that can be very expensive.

Benefits include human safety of fisherman and business operators, and the avoidance of possible economic losses deriving from port closures, infrastructure damages, operation stoppages and fishing vessels stuck in ports.

Since safety at sea is a world-wide issue for all maritime activities, international regulations have been primarily developed by IMO, the International Maritime Organisation, setting global standards for the safety, security and environmental performance of international shipping. A clear example is SOLAS, among the most important treaties dealing with maritime safety.

Safety at sea is a key element of the European maritime transport policy too, with a view to protecting passengers, crew members, marine environment and coastal regions. European legislation incorporate IMO standards and provides additional measure through a wide set of directives and regulations concerning training and qualifications, marine equipment, security on ships and port facilities and passenger ship safety. In particular, the European Union Maritime Security Strategy and its action plan (2014) identified climate change and extreme events among the main threats and risks on the maritime transport system and on maritime infrastructure, highlighting the need of assessing the resilience of the sector to these risks and to take appropriate adaptive actions to mitigate them.

Within the Common Fisheries Policy, the EMMF encourages the safety and improvement of working conditions under the Union Priority 1 and 2 (Promoting environmentally sustainable, resource–efficient, innovative, competitive and knowledge–based fisheries and aquaculture), supporting the investments on board or in individual equipment beyond Union and national law (Art. 32), on infrastructure of fishing ports, auctions halls, landing sites and shelter (Art.43) and in modernisation of aquaculture units (Art.48).

Simple adaptation measures implemented to enhance safety during fishing activities and navigation can be shortly implemented (1-2 years) while more complex solutions such as elevation/relocation of port infrastructures require longer time for their implementation. Other measures are part of a process of continuous and autonomous adaptation, following the general technological upgrade of systems, and devices.

This adaptation option should be regarded as a continuous process, requiring a progressive update of safety systems and procedures and a continuous monitoring of their efficiency