E.I.A. Methodology Implementation by Field Studies of Environmental and Socioeconomic Impacts Due to E & P Activities in the Mediterranean
Authors: Ratti Sabina , Modica Alfonso , Ceffa Luigi , Di Luise Giancarlo , Panzeri Adelio , Alfano Mario , Cannata Salvatore 
Published: December 2007

E.I.A. Methodology Implementation by Field Studies of Environmental and Socioeconomic Impacts Due to E&P Activities in the Mediterranean Sabina Ratti, AGIP S.p.A., Alfonso Modica Centro Oceanologico Mediterraneo S.C.p.A., Luigi Ceffa, AGIP S.p.A., Giancarlo Di Luise AGIP S.p.A., Adelio Panzeri, AGIP S.p.A., Mario Alfano Centro Oceanologico Mediterraneo S.C.p.A. Salvatore Cannata, Centro Oceanologico Mediterraneo S.C.p.A.

The paper presents the results of a large multidisciplinary research project promoted by AGIP and carried out from 1992 to 1994. Objectives of the research were:–to identify, analyze and quantify all the impacts attributable to offshore activities on the coastal and marine environment of the Italian seas;–to define a suitable methodology taking into account both normative requirements and the most significant impacts identified by scientific experts, aiming at implementing a PC-based software package helpful in analyzing and jointly evaluating all impacts of future offshore projects.

Introduction

Along the Italian coasts, oil or gas wells are almost exclusively located in the Sicily Strait and in the Adriatic Sea; though these activities are very intense, a large part of them have not previously been supported by overall environmental impact studies, on the basis also of the quite absence of official requirements. The constant development of European and Italian legislation regarding Environmental Impact Assessment culminated recently with a Presidential Decree concerning the procedure whose stages lead to the declaration of environmental compatibility by the Italian Environment Ministry about hydrocarbons exploration and production projects. At the same time AGIP (the main upstream oil company operating in Italy) started scientific researches on the environmental effects of some existing installations, during both the drilling phase and production one. Ex-post analyses were performed, regarding biophysical and socioeconomic aspects of the offshore activities on references platforms located in the Adriatic Sea and in the Sicily Strait (Fig. 1).

The choice these reference platforms took into account the following issues:–hydrocarbons production: almost the totality of Italian offshore gas fields are located in the Adriatic sea, meanwhile the Sicily Strait is mainly devoted to oil exploitation;–marine and coastal environment: the hydrological, morphological, chemical and biological characteristics of the two locations are completely different, even if both are included in the Mediterranean basin;–operational activities: different exploration and production activities were covered during the investigation period of the research project.

As far as the impacts on the biophysical environment are concerned, a complete characterization of the platforms ecosystem was made. In particular, the main analyses performed around the reference sites, during in situ surveys, concerned noise and atmospheric emissions, physical, chemical and biological parameters of both the water column and the seabottom, characteristics of fisheries and fouling communities. Extensive studies were also developed about offshore environmental risk, about aspects related to the decommissioning and the reutilization of marine installations and finally about the socioeconomic implications of the whole upstream activity on the interested coastal regions.

The results of all these analyses were suitably transferred in order to develop a technical support for both environmental and socioeconomical effects assessment: databases and simulation models were developed and various evaluation methods were integrated, with the purpose of arranging a highly useful support system for environmental impact assessments of all the hydrocarbons exploitation projects that will be planned on the Italian continental shelf.

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