At present, sea ice remains a critical factor affecting the safety of vessel operations along the Northern Sea Route (NSR). However, inconsistencies between the navigability outcomes derived from the criteria for the admission of ships in the area of the Northern Sea Route (NSR criteria) and the polar operational limit assessment risk indexing system (POLARIS) methodology present challenges for navigational decision-making. This study aims to conduct a systematic comparison of the POLARIS methodology and the NSR criteria in evaluating the navigability of independently operating vessels classified as Arc4 to Arc9. Through comparative calculations of navigability and the navigability rates for six ice-class vessels across 27 districts using the two methods, this study reveals the consistencies and discrepancies in their navigability outcomes. Firstly, using the POLARIS methodology, the risk index outcome (RIO) is calculated for six ice-class vessels across 27 districts. For these districts, the navigability threshold is defined when 95% or more of the area exhibits an RIO greater than or equal to zero. Secondly, using the NSR criteria, navigability ratios for six ice-class vessels under varying ice conditions are evaluated. A navigability threshold is defined when 95% or more of the ice conditions in a district are classified as navigable. Finally, a quantitative comparison of the weekly navigability ratios obtained by the two methods is conducted to reveal the consistencies and discrepancies in the navigability outcomes of each ice-class vessel across different NSR districts. The results indicate that the consistency between the navigability outcomes of the two methods decreases with lower vessel ice classes, particularly in September and March. In general, the consistency of performance between the two methods in terms of navigability outcomes deteriorates as the vessel ice class decreases and ice conditions become more complex. This study provides a scientific foundation and data-based support for route planning and real-time decision-making in polar waters.

Offshore oil exploration and the volume of imported crude oil shipping have increased steadily, elevating the risk of oil spills. An advanced offshore oil film identification method is proposed to realize the accurate and robust recognition and segmentation of oil films from marine radar images in offshore oil spill detection. This method integrates feature engineering with an improved Beetle Antennae Search (BAS) optimization algorithm, aiming to address the key issues of low discrimination between oil films and complex marine backgrounds and insufficient spill boundary localization accuracy in radar image analysis. First, the raw radar image was transformed into the Cartesian coordinate system, and a filtering procedure was applied to attenuate interference. Subsequently, the gray distribution and local contrast of the denoised image was further improved. Afterwards, the complexity of the grayscale distribution within each feature map was quantified using Shannon entropy. The Top-K feature maps with the highest entropy values were subsequently used to construct an information-rich subset. The subset was then processed through a pixel-wise averaging strategy to generate a coupled feature image. Then, Otsu threshold was used to refine ocean wave regions. Finally, the oil films were segmented with an improved BAS optimization algorithm. The fitness function of the improved BAS algorithm was augmented through the integration of edge fitting accuracy, and a target-proximity penalization scheme. Through an adaptive step-length modulation paradigm and Perceptual Mechanism, it can achieve a marked improvement in search accuracy and achieving precise segmentation of oil slicks. The detection accuracy of the proposed method is significantly enhanced relative to the traditional BAS algorithm and existing marine radar oil spill detection methods. The IOU, Dice, recall and F1-score reached 81.2%, 89.6%, 85.2%, and 90.1% respectively. This method not only advances the methodological rigor of spill detection but also provides critical data support for the development of more effective control and remediation practices.

In the context of global warming, polar tourism is developing rapidly, and the demand for polar cruise travel in the Northwest Passage continues to increase, while sea ice has long been a key factor limiting the development of polar cruise tourism. This study focuses on the operational risk of sea ice on cruise ships in the Northwest Passage (NWP), aiming to provide a scientific basis for ensuring the safety of cruise ship navigation and promoting the sustainable development of polar tourism. Based on ice data from 2015 to 2024, this study used the Polar Operational Limit Assessment Risk Indexing System (POLARIS) methodology recommended by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to establish three scenarios for the route of ice class IC cruise ships: light ice, normal ice, and heavy ice. The navigable windows were systematically analyzed and critical waters along the route were identified. The results indicate that the navigable windows for IC ice-class cruise ships under light ice conditions are from mid-July to early December, while the navigable period under normal ice conditions is only from mid- to late September, and navigation is not possible under heavy ice conditions. The study identified Larsen Sound, Barrow Strait, Bellot Strait and Eastern Beaufort Sea as critical waters on the NWP cruise route. Among them, Larsen Sound and Eastern Beaufort Sea have a more prominent impact on voyage scheduling because their navigation weeks overlap less with other waters. This study provides a new idea for the risk assessment of polar cruise ships in ice regions. The research results can provide an important reference for the safe operation of polar cruise ships in the NWP and the decision-making of relevant parties.

In the wake of the continuous development of the international strategic petroleum reserve system, the tonnage and quantity of oil tankers have been increasing. This trend has driven the expansion of offshore oil exploration and transportation, resulting in frequent incidents of ship oil spills. Catastrophic impacts have been exerted on the marine environment by these accidents, posing a serious threat to economic development and ecological security. Therefore, there is an urgent need for efficient and reliable methods to detect oil spills in a timely manner and minimize potential losses as much as possible. In response to this challenge, a marine radar oil film segmentation method based on feature fusion and the artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is proposed in this study. Initially, the raw experimental data are preprocessed to obtain denoised radar images. Subsequently, grayscale adjustment and local contrast enhancement operations are carried out on the denoised images. Next, the gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) features and Tamura features are extracted from the locally contrast-enhanced images. Then, the generalized least squares (GLS) method is employed to fuse the extracted texture features, yielding a new feature fusion map. Afterwards, the optimal processing threshold is determined to obtain effective wave regions by using the bimodal graph direct method. Finally, the ABC algorithm is utilized to segment the oil films. This method can provide data support for oil spill detection in marine radar images.

The continuous expansion of global maritime trade and shipping networks has increased the risk of marine oil spills. The increasing frequency of oil spill incidents has seriously threatened nearshore ecosystems, marine biological resources, and the sustainable development of coastal regions. An improved Monarch Butterfly Optimization (MBO) algorithm was proposed to achieve accurate identification and segmentation of oil spill regions in radar images. The original radar images underwent preprocessing, including grayscale conversion and background pixel removal, to preserve the informative pixels of oil films and improve the contrast between oil films and the seawater background. Subsequently, a genetic algorithm was employed to optimize the radial basis function (RBF) neural network, and a three-dimensional pixel feature space was constructed for oil spill Region of Interest (ROI) extraction. Finally, the improved MBO algorithm was applied to design a multi-objective fitness function integrating within-class variance, between-class differences, and class proportion constraints. Global optimization of the segmentation threshold was achieved via dynamic parameter adjustment, reverse learning, and elite reproduction, enabling accurate oil spill extraction. The precision, recall, F1 score, and IoU of the algorithm were 92.4%, 93.3%, 92.8%, and 86.6%, respectively. The proposed method achieves a well-balanced performance in both detection accuracy and region overlap, exhibits clear advantages over the compared methods in overall segmentation quality. The results demonstrated that the improved MBO algorithm mitigated segmentation challenges induced by low contrast and strong clutter, achieving superior classification accuracy and region completeness for offshore oil spill monitoring.

Oil spill accidents pose a grave threat to marine ecosystems, human economy, and public health. Consequently, expeditious and efficacious oil spill detection technology is imperative for the pollution mitigation and the health preservation in the marine environment. This study proposed a marine radar oil spill detection method based on Local Binary Patterns (LBP), Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG), and an improved Firefly Optimization Algorithm (IFA). In the stage of image pre-processing, the oil film features were significantly enhanced through three steps. The LBP features were extracted from the preprocessed image. Then, the mean filtering was used to smooth out the LBP features. Subsequently, the HOG statistical features were extracted from the filtered LBP feature map. After the feature enhancement, the oil spill regions were accurately extracted by using K-Means clustering algorithm. Next, an IFA model was used to classify oil films. Compared with traditional Firefly Optimization Algorithm (FA) algorithm, the IFA method is suitable for oil film segmentation tasks in marine radar data. The proposed method can achieve accuracy segmentation and provide a new technical path for marine oil spill monitoring.