Green North Sea Docks: Development of the Best Environmental Practice for Decontaminating Tributyltin (TBT) Containing Waters in the North Sea Region Based on Life Cycle Assessment
Vlaamse overheid; Beleidsdomein Mobiliteit en Openbare Werken; Vlaams Ministerie van Mobiliteit en Openbare Werken; Agentschap voor Maritieme Dienstverlening en Kust; Afdeling Kust, more, partner
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Campus Kortrijk; Faculteit Wetenschappen; Interdisciplinair Research Centrum (IRC), more
A common decision supporting tool (DST) will be developed in cooperation with local EPAs, harbour administrators and scientists in order to provide decision makers with an instrument for sustainable management of the marine environment.
Additionally cross-border knowledge transfer concerning effects of regulation criteria between policy makers and researchers will be improved. The project will provide a direct contribution to sustainable development of the North Sea region by introducing a cross-sectoral environmental risk assessment strategy for finding the best environmental practice for TBT and heavy metal contamination at shipyards. This will lead to a common strategy tool that helps to avoid distortion of competition of dockyards and harbours. Due to harmonised regulation criteria in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden.
The decision making tool allows harbour managers and regional environmental authorities to compare treatment costs in relation to long-term environmental targets. Furthermore a willingness-to-pay (WTP) study will be performed to quantify socio-economic effects. Via an integrated assessment, which takes into account local, regional and open sea aspects the most efficient process based on sustainable development criteria, can be found.
The decision instrument will be developed based upon data generated from suitable wastewater treatment processes. Process optimisation and comparison will be conducted to ensure technical and economical practicability and lead to an improvement of the state of the art. This action-oriented project will contribute towards the improvement of the environmental quality in the North Sea countries. Tributyltin (TBT) as example for biocides and heavy metals (mainly Cu and Zn) will be used as indicator pollutants. Furthermore the minimisation of water consumption in dockyards by close water cycles can be achieved.
In conclusion this project will make advances in the management and development of knowledge, specially, in knowledge organisation, in light of opportunities provided by new technologies, and supported by common, systematic and standard formats, capable of producing standardised data base that facilitate the flow of information on an European scale.
