Effects of wind strength and wave height on ship incident risk: Regional trends and seasonality

• Wind strength and wave height effect on incident risk is evaluated at ship level.
• Effects are estimated by logit models per ship type for six regions across the globe.
• Risk effects are higher in autumn and winter and tend to increase over time.
• Unique dataset of over five million observations combines various data sources.
• Results are useful to study weather-related incidents in context of climate change.

Oceanographic conditions like wind strength and wave height affect the risk of shipping incidents. Seasonal variations and trends in these effects are studied for weather-related incidents and pollution incidents, for six major ship types and for six regions across the globe. The employed database of more than five million observations combines information from various sources on oceanographic conditions, ship particulars, and incidents. The magnitude of wind and wave effects is found to vary by ship type, region, season, and period, and most of these effects are larger during the autumn and winter season and in recent periods.