Transforming Maritime Safety Culture. Evaluation of the impacts of the ISM Code on maritime safety culture in Finland

The purpose of the METKU Project (Development of Maritime Safety Culture) is to study how the ISM Code has influenced the safety culture in the maritime industry. This literature review is written as a part of the Work Package 2 which is conducted by the University of Turku, Centre for Maritime Studies. The maritime traffic is rapidly growing in the Baltic Sea which leads to a growing risk of maritime accidents. Particularly in the Gulf of Finland, the high volume of traffic causes a high risk of maritime accidents. The growing risks give us good reasons for implementing the research project concerning maritime safety and the effectiveness of the safety measures, such as the safety management systems. In order to reduce maritime safety risks, the safety management systems should be further developed. The METKU Project has been launched to examine the improvements which can be done to the safety management systems. Human errors are considered as the most important reason for maritime accidents. The international safety management code (the ISM Code) has been established to cut down the occurrence of human errors by creating a safety-oriented organizational culture for the maritime industry. The ISM Code requires that a company should provide safe practices in ship operation and a safe working environment and establish safeguards against all identified risk. The fundamental idea of the ISM Code is that companies should continuously improve safety. The commitment of the top management is essential for implementing a safety-oriented culture in a company. The ISM Code has brought a significant contribution to the progress of maritime safety in recent years. Shipping companies and ships’ crews are more environmentally friendly and more safety-oriented than 12 years ago. This has been showed by several studies which have been analysed for this literature research. Nevertheless, the direct effect and influence of the ISM Code on maritime safety could not be isolated very well. No quantitative measurement (statistics/hard data) could be found in order to present the impacts of the ISM Code on maritime safety. In this study it has been discovered that safety culture has emerged and it is developing in the maritime industry. Even though the roots of the safety culture have been established there are still serious barriers to the breakthrough of the safety management. These barriers could be envisaged as cultural factors preventing the safety process. Even though the ISM Code has been effective over a decade, the old-established behaviour which is based on the old day’s maritime culture still occurs. In the next phase of this research project, these cultural factors shall be analysed in regard to the present safety culture of the maritime industry in Finland.

The Methods of Possible Joint Treatment of Manure and Sewage Sludge in the Leningrad Region

The nutrient load to the Gulf of Finland has started to increase as a result of the strong economic recovery in agriculture and livestock farming in the Leningrad region. Also sludge produced from municipal wastewater treatment plant of the Leningrad region causes the great impact on the environment, but still the main options for its treatment is disposal on the sludge beds or Landfills. The aim of this study was to evaluate the implementation of possible joint treatment methods of manure form livestock and poultry enterprises and sewage sludge produced from municipal wastewater treatment plants in the Leningrad region. The study is based on published data. The most attention was put on the anaerobic digestion and incineration methods. The manure and sewage sludge generation for the whole Leningrad region and energy potential produced from their treatment were estimated. The calculations showed that total amount of sewage sludge generation is 1 348 000 t/a calculated on wet matter and manure generation is 3 445 000 t/a calculated on wet matter. The potential heat release from anaerobic digestion process and incineration process is 4 880 000 GJ/a and 5 950 000 GJ/a, respectively. Furthermore, the work gives the overview of the general Russian and Finnish legislation concerning manure and sewage sludge treatment. In the Gatchina district it was chosen the WWTP and livestock and poultry enterprises for evaluation of the centralized treatment plant implementation based on anaerobic digestion and incineration methods. The electricity and heat power of plant based on biogas combustion process is 4.3 MW and 7.8 MW, respectively. The electricity and heat power of plant based on manure and sewage sludge incineration process is 3.0 MW and 6.1 MW, respectively.

Utilization of Incident Reporting in The Finnish Maritime Industry

Marine traffic is expected to increase rapidly in the future, both in the Baltic Sea and in the Gulf of Finland. As the number of vessels in the area increases, so does the risk of serious marine accidents. To help prevent such accidents in the future, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has put forth the International Safety Management Code (the ISM Code), which aims to improve the safety of the vessels. The second work package of the Development of maritime safety culture (METKU) project investigates the effects of the ISM Code and potential areas of improvement in maritime safety. The first phase in the work package used a literature review to determine how maritime safety culture could be improved. Continuous improvement, management commitment and personnel empowerment and motivation were found to be essential. In the second phase, shipping companies and administrators were interviewed. It was discovered that especially incident reporting based on continuous improvement was felt to be lacking. This third phase aims to take a closer look at incident reporting and suggest improvements based on the findings. Both the IMO and national legislation encourage shipping companies in incident reporting, and on the national level a shared incident reporting system (ForeSea) is being pushed forward. The objective of this research project was to find out the IMO’s attitude towards incident reporting, to establish a theoretical framework of reference in incident reporting, and to observe how reporting is actually being employed on the seas. Existing incident reporting systems were also researched. The study was carried out using a literature review and the results previously gathered in interviews. The results of phase two were elaborated further for themes relating to incident reporting. According to the findings of this research, the theoretical background of incident reporting dates back to the early 20th century. Although some theories are widely accepted, some have also received criticism. The lack of a concise, shared terminology poses major difficulties in maritime incident reporting and in determining its efficiency. A central finding is the fact that existing incident reporting focuses mostly on information flow away from the ship, whereas the backward information flow is much less planned and monitored. In incident reporting, both nationally and internationally, stakeholders are plenty. The information produced by these parties is scattered, however, and thus not very usable. Based on this research, the centralizing of this information should be made a priority. Traditionally, the success of incident reporting has been determined statistically, from the number of reported incidents. Yet existing reporting systems have not been designed with such statistical analysis in mind, so different methodologies might yield a more comprehensive view. The previous findings of seafarers and management (including shipping companies and administration) having differing views on safety work and safety management were backed up by the results of this study. Seafarers find seamanship and storytelling important, while management wants a more systematic and broad approach on safety matters. The research project was carried out by the Centre for Maritime Studies of the University of Turku, in the Kotka unit (Maritime Logistics Research), with coordination by the Kotka Maritime Research Centre. The major financiers of the project were the European Union and the city of Kotka. The financing authority was the Regional Council of Päijät-Häme. Partners in the project were the shipping companies Finnlines Oyj, Kristina Cruises Oy, Meriaura Oy and VG-Shipping Oy, and the ports of Helsinki, Kotka and Hamina. The partners provided both funding for the project and information for the research.

Efficiency of the ISM Code in Finnish Shipping Companies

Due to increasing waterborne transportation in the Gulf of Finland, the risk of a hazardous accident increases and therefore manifold preventive actions are needed. As a main legislative authority in the maritime community, The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set down plenary laws and recommendations which are e.g., utilised in the safe operations in ships and pollution prevention. One of these compulsory requirements, the ISM Code, requires proactive attitude both from the top management and operational workers in the shipping companies. In this study, a crosssectional approach was taken to analyse whether the ISM Code has actively enhanced maritime safety in the Gulf of Finland. The analysis included; 1) performance of the ISM Code in Finnish shipping companies, 2) statistical measurements of maritime safety, 3) influence of corporate top management to the safety culture and 4) comparing safety management practices in shipping companies and port operations of Finnish maritime and port authorities. The main results found were that maritime safety culture has developed in the right direction after the launch of the ISM Code in the 1990´s. However, this study does not exclusively prove that the improvements are the consequence of the ISM Code. Accident prone ships can be recognized due to their behaviour and there is a lesson to learn from the safety culture of some high standard safety disciplines such as, air traffic. In addition, the reporting of accidents and nearmisses should be more widely used in shipping industry. In conclusion, there is still much to be improved in the maritime safety culture of the Finnish Shipping industry, e.g., a “no blame culture” needs to be adopted.

Disturbance and ecosystem functioning : the role of changes in benthic biological traits

Rapid changes in biodiversity are occurring globally, as a consequence of anthropogenic disturbance. This has raised concerns, since biodiversity is known to significantly contribute to ecosystem functions and services. Marine benthic communities participate in numerous functions provided by soft-sedimentary ecosystems. Eutrophication-induced oxygen deficiency is a growing threat against infaunal communities, both in open sea areas and in coastal zones. There is thus a need to understand how such disturbance affects benthic communities, and what is lost in terms of ecosystem functioning if benthic communities are harmed. In this thesis, the status of benthic biodiversity was assessed for the open Baltic Sea, a system severely affected by broad-scale hypoxia. Long-term monitoring data made it possible to establish quantitative biodiversity baselines against which change could be compared. The findings show that benthic biodiversity is currently severely impaired in large areas of the open Baltic Sea, from the Bornholm Basin to the Gulf of Finland. The observed reduction in biodiversity indicates that benthic communities are structurally and functionally impoverished in several of the sub-basins due to the hypoxic stress. A more detailed examination of disturbance impacts (through field studies and -experiments) on benthic communities in coastal areas showed that changes in benthic community structure and function took place well before species were lost from the system. The degradation of benthic community structure and function was directed by the type of disturbance, and its specific temporal and spatial characteristics. The observed shifts in benthic trait composition were primarily the result of reductions in species’ abundances, or of changes in demographic characteristics, such as the loss of large, adult bivalves. Reduction in community functions was expressed as declines in the benthic bioturbation potential and in secondary biomass production. The benthic communities and their degradation accounted for a substantial proportion of the changes observed in ecosystem multifunctionality. Individual ecosystem functions (i.e. measures of sediment ecosystem metabolism, elemental cycling, biomass production, organic matter transformation and physical structuring) were observed to differ in their response to increasing hypoxic disturbance. Interestingly, the results suggested that an impairment of ecosystem functioning could be detected at an earlier stage if multiple functions were considered. Importantly, the findings indicate that even small-scale hypoxic disturbance can reduce the buffering capacity of sedimentary ecosystem, and increase the susceptibility of the system towards further stress. Although the results of the individual papers are context-dependent, their combined outcome implies that healthy benthic communities are important for sustaining overall ecosystem functioning as well as ecosystem resilience in the Baltic Sea.

The Role of Oxidative Stress in Environmental Responses of Fennoscandian Animals

All aerobic organisms have to deal with the toxicity of oxygen. Oxygen enables more efficient energy production compared to anaerobic respiration or fermentation, but at the same time reactive oxygen species (ROS) are being formed. ROS can also be produced by external factors such as UV-radiation and contamination. ROS can cause damage to biomolecules such as DNA, lipids and proteins and organisms try to keep the damage as small as possible by repairing biomolecules and metabolizing ROS. All ROS are not harmful, because they are used as signaling molecules. To cope against ROS organism have an antioxidant (AOX) system which consists both enzymatic and non-enzymatic AOX defense. Some AOX are produced by the organism itself and some are gained via diet. In this thesis I studied environmentally caused changes in the redox regulation of different wild vertebrate animals to gain knowledge on the temporal, spatial and pollution-derived-effects on the AOX systems. As study species I used barn swallow, ringed seal and the Baltic salmon. For the barn swallow the main interest was the seasonal fluctuation in the redox regulation and its connection to migration and breeding. The more contaminated ringed seals of the Baltic Sea were compared to seals from cleaner Svalbard to investigate whether they suffered from contaminant induced oxidative stress. The regional and temporal variation in redox regulation and regional variation in mRNA and protein expressions of Baltic salmon were studied to gain knowledge if the salmon from different areas are equally stressed. As a comparative aspect the redox responses of these different species were investigated to see which parts of the AOX system are substantial in which species. Certain parts of AOX system were connected to breeding and others to migration in barn swallows, there was also differences in biotransformation between birds caught from Africa and Finland. The Baltic ringed seal did not differ much from the seals from Svalbard, despite the difference in contaminant load. A possible explanation to this could be the enhanced AOX mechanisms against dive-associated oxidative stress in diving air-breathing animals, which also helps to cope with ROS derived from other sourses. The Baltic salmon from Gulf of Finland (GoF) showed higher activities in their AOX defense enzymes and more oxidative damage than fish from other areas. Also on mRNA and proteomic level, stress related metabolic changes were most profound in in the fish from GoF. Mainly my findings on species related differences followed the pattern of mammals showing highest activities and least damage and birds showing lower activities and most damage, fish being intermediate. In general, the glutathione recycling-related enzymes and the ratio of oxidized and reduced glutathione seemed to be the most affected parameters in all of the species.