Pollution risk assessment of oil spill accidents in Garorim Bay of Korea

•A lot of oil spill accidents are around Korean Peninsula.•Risk assessment is carried out using two factors; Impact probability of oil spill, and first impact time of spilt oil.•The risk assessment is performed for the environmentally sensitive areas.•The prediction of oil spill spread based on real-time sea condition has been enhanced through this study.

This study presents a model to assess the oil spill risk in Garorim Bay in Korea, where large-scale oil spill accidents frequently occur. The oil spill risk assessment is carried out by using two factors: 1) The impact probability of the oil spill, and 2) the first impact time of the oil that has been spilt. The risk assessment is conducted for environmentally sensitive areas, such as the coastline and aquaculture farms in the Garorim Bay area. Finally, Garorim Bay is divided into six subareas, and the risks of each subarea are compared with one another to identify the subarea that is most vulnerable to an oil spill accident. These results represent an objective and comprehensive oil spill risk level for a specific region. The prediction of the oil spill spread is based on real-time sea conditions and can be improved by integrating our results, especially when sea conditions are rapidly changing.