Oil spills are of great concern because they impose a threat to the marine ecosystem, including shorelines. As oil spilled at sea is transported to the shoreline, and after its arrival, its behavior and physicochemical characteristics change because of natural weathering phenomena. Additionally, the fate of the oil depends on shoreline type, tidal energy, and environmental conditions. This paper critically overviews the vulnerability of shorelines to oil spill impact and the implication of seasonal variations with the natural attenuation of oil. A comprehensive review of various monitoring techniques, including GIS tools and remote sensing, is discussed for tracking, and mapping oil spills. A comparison of various remote sensors shows that laser fluorosensors can detect oil on various types of substrates, including snow and ice. Moreover, current methods to prevent oil from reaching the shoreline, including physical booms, sorbents, and dispersants, are examined. The advantages and limitations of various physical, chemical, and biological treatment methods and their application suitability for different shore types are discussed. The paper highlights some of the challenges faced while managing oil spills, including viewpoints on the lack of monitoring data, the need for integrated decision-making systems, and the development of rapid response strategies to optimize the protection of shorelines from oil spills.

Tracking workforce and equipment at construction jobsites has attracted considerable interest, considering its importance for productivity analysis, safety monitoring, and dynamic site layout planning, for example. Several real-time locating systems (RTLSs) are commercially available, but their requirements for attaching sensors or tags to a workers or equipment raise privacy concerns. Recently, the idea of using video cameras statically placed at construction jobsites to track workers and equipment has been proposed and tested. One challenge of visual tracking stems from jobsite occlusions, which significantly affect tracking performance. This paper presents a vision tracking method using particle filters to address the issue of occlusions at construction jobsites. The method includes two main phases. First, the worker or mobile equipment of interest is manually initiated with a rectangular window, and hundreds of particles are generated. Then each particle is propagated and its weight is calcula...

Climate change has been observed worldwide in recent decades, posing challenges to the coastal and offshore oil and gas infrastructure. It is crucial to identify how climate change affects these infrastructures and the associated oil spill risk. This paper provides an analysis of the vulnerability of coastal and offshore oil and gas infrastructure in response to climate change. The paper examines oil spill incidents worldwide and addresses climate change’s possible influences on oil spill risk. Moreover, available oil spill modeling and decision support tools for oil spill response are reviewed considering climate change. The paper signals the need for emerging decision and modeling tools considering climate change effects, which can help decision-makers to evaluate the risk on time and provide early warnings to adapt or prevent the unforeseen impacts on the oil industry partially resulting from global warming, including oil spill accidents.