The Role of Human Factors in Maritime Environmental Risk Assessment: A Case Study of Oil Spill Response

Abstract

Human error is one of the significant factors attributed to marine accidents. This paper aims to assess the potential contribution of human errors in improving maritime environmental risk management. Success Likelihood Index Method (SLIM), has been adopted to systematically estimate human error potentials for designated tasks in pollution prevention, along with fuzzy sets to deal with subjectivity in the process of using experts’ judgments. An oil spill response operation was investigated due to its considerable risks for the marine environment. Environmental factors, familiarity, and fatigue were observed as having a high impact on human performance. Besides its theoretical insight, the paper provides practical insights into the prevention of marine pollution. This study is presented as a reference providing a contribution to estimating the impact of human errors on maritime accidents. The paper is also intended to contribute to other risky industries where human errors can lead to fatal consequences.