The main objective of the HAZADR project was the establishment of a cross-border network for the prevention of risk and for the early management of emergencies related to pollution of the Adriatic Sea and its coasts. Within this overall objective, HAZADR developed an interactive Atlas, a specific e-tool for managing marine pollution events caused by oil spill. The Atlas is a real time early warning system for accredited users (mainly Adriatic emergency corps), that allows the simultaneous view of risk propagation and potential coastal threats. It integrated information about: weather and sea forecast in the Adriatic sea, highly sensitive and vulnerable coastal areas, intrinsic risky index of operating vessels, oil spill diffusion and the availability of emergency equipment displacement.
HAZADR has been built on Shape project experience, capitalizing some of its results. This has brought to the integration of some HAZADR spatial data (e.g. vulnerability of the coasts) within the already existing “Adriatic Atlas to support ICZM and MSP”, freely accessible on-line.
Questions this practice may help answer
- How can e-tools used to manage oil spill risks in particular for most vulnerable coastal areas?
- What are the different spatial data which are needed to run such e-tools?
- Are those data or part of those data useful for the MSP process?
Implementation Context
The main objective of the HAZADR project was the establishment of a cross-border network for the prevention of risk and for the early management of emergencies related to pollution of the Adriatic Sea and its coasts. Specifically, HAZADR aimed at strengthening a common reaction capacity of the communities belonging to the Adriatic Region against environmental and technological hazards due to collisions, shipwrecking and spillage of oil and toxic material into the sea that could seriously pollute the marine environment and damage the socio-economic activities of the sea and coastal communities. Within these overall objectives, HAZADR developed an interactive Atlas, a specific “e-tool” for managing marine pollution events caused by oil spill.
Aspects / Objectives
The HAZADR Atlas is a real time early-warning system that allows the simultaneous view of several information related to risk propagation due to oil spill in the Adriatic Sea and potential threats for coastal areas. Furthermore the Atlas aims at setting up a common database on the state of readiness and spatial distribution of pollution preventing equipment along the Adriatic coasts. The Atlas can be used only by authorized users that include HAZADR partners and in particular Adriatic emergency corps. HAZADR project also aimed at creating synergy with the Shape project.
Method
The Atlas consists in the integration of 5 informative layers:
- Coastal vulnerability maps;
- Forecast of weather and sea conditions;
- Real time position of vessels in the Adriatic Sea and associated risk index;
- Oil spill diffusion simulation from GNOME model;
- Response equipment displaced along the coast.
The availability of information on weather and sea forecast is the result of a wide collaboration with several subjects operating in the sector, including the Meteo Service of the Italian Air Force, the Hydro-Meteo-Climate service of Emilia-Romagna Environment Protection Agency, the Environment Protection Agency of Piemonte Region, the Department of Life and Environmental Science of the Polytechnic University, etc.

Atlas conceptual model. Source: “A cross border initiative to protect the Adriatic coasts from the oil spill. The results of the HAZADR project and new perspectives”; final report of the project.
Main Outputs / Results
The Atlas provides the Adriatic emergency corps with a standardized decision support system for managing marine pollution events caused by oil spill. It integrates information about different aspects: (i) most sensitive and vulnerable coastal areas of the Adriatic basin, (ii) weather and sea forecasts, (Iii) intrinsic risky index of vessels in relation to their real time position, (iv) simulation of oils spill diffusion, (v) availability of emergency equipment.
All these informative layers, both static and dynamic, automatically interact and feed one Adriatic-scale early warning system (the Atlas) that estimates the potential coastal risks associated to the presence of dangerous ship (and related to collisions, shipwrecking and oil spill). When a high risk vessel representing a possible threat for the coast is detected, the Atlas dispatches in automatic a warning message (via SMS and email) addressed to the qualified emergency operators. This warning is sent from ACCRA (Adriatic Coastal Control Room Ancona) that is also responsible for managing the whole system.

Screenshot of Atlas interface showing an oil spill simulation. Source: “A cross border initiative to protect the Adriatic coasts from the oil spill. The results of the HAZADR project and new perspectives”; final report pf the project.
Some of the spatial information of the HAZADR Atlas is freely available. Thanks to the agreement between HAZADR and Shape projects, a number of spatial layers have been integrated in the “Adriatic Atlas to support ICZM and MSP” developed by Shape which is freely accessible on-line. The HAZADR layers included in the Shape atlas are:
- Posidonia distribution
- Wind forecast (velocity and direction)
- Sea surface current forecast (velocity and direction)
- Significant wave forecast (direction and height)
- Coastal morphology
- Cultural and natural heritage sites
- Coastal vulnerability to oil spill
- Environmental and human vulnerability to oil spill
At the same time, HAZADR used a number of spatial information collected by Shape and included in its Atlas, in particular to elaborate coastal vulnerability maps.

Example of HAZADR spatial data embedded in Shape Atlas – Coastal vulnerability to oil spill in the North Adriatic. Source: Adriatic Atlas to support ICZM and MSP - Available at: http://atlas.shape-ipaproject.eu/
Transferability
Some of the spatial information developed by HAZADR has been transferred to the Shape “Adriatic Atlas to support ICZM and MSP”, thus integrating the wide dataset of freely accessible layers for MSP and ICZM implementation at the Adriatic scale. The HAZADR Atlas enables authorised users to analyse in details oil spill-related risks; this information can be useful to evaluate shipping re-routing options to reduce oil spill related risks.
Contact Person
Lucia Di Lauro
Apulia Region, Department of Civil Protection
E-mail: l.dilauroregione.puglia.it (l[dot]dilauro[at]regione[dot]puglia[dot]it)
Responsible Entity
Apulia Region, Department of Civil Protection
Costs / Funding Source
HAZADR was co-funded by the IPA Adriatic Cross-border Cooperation 2007-2013. Total project budget was € 3.291.128, while IPA contribution was € 2.797.459 (85% of the total budget). The specific budget allocated to HAZADR Atlas design and creation is not available.