Arctic research without validation!

I’m an engineer, but can appreciate the fact that many problems can’t be solved with new technology or by solving an equation. Since June, when I visited the ASME conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering (OMAE 2013), I’ve been revisiting a thought several times:

In the opening speech to the arctic symposium at the conference it was clearly stated that in arctic engineering everything starts with the arctic operation. Without understanding the intended operation there is no point in doing the engineering. This sounds very true and important to understand…

But then the presentations started and none of the ones I visited even reflected on the intended operation. Many presentations discussed calculations in model scale and calibration with model tests and when there were questions about agreement with the full scale situation everybody said: “Don’t know, we don’t have any full scale data”.

So my impression from the conference (hope it’s wrong) is that all over world there are a lot of researchers doing arctic studies with the aim make arctic operations feasible (and risk assessment on arctic operations) without validated relevant data. The excuse is that the full scale tests needed are very expensive. But maybe the tests it is more worthwhile than putting the money on research that can’t be validated?

”Somali style” pirates off Nigeria, “Chinese reports on fishing volumes wrong” and the Canadian Navy planes for taking control of their long north coast

We all know that shipping and the oceans must be seen in a global context, our national borders don’t matter much. If a nation isn’t able to control its waters others will use them to their will. As we have seen and are seeing out of Somalia in terms of pirates. The pirates of Somalia led to an unprecedented international engagement (and the political reasons for that can of course be debated).

It is unlikely that the type of international focus that today is put off Somalia will be applied to more than one place at the time and even that is probably wishful thinking. The rise of piracy off western Africa is therefore extra troublesome as the international focus still is on pirates out of Somalia (see also post from November 26, 2012 Better times off Somalia, but tougher for the decision maker!). The piracy off western Africa has its own specific traits (with a higher focus on the cargo rather than the crew and ship), but now there are also reports on “Somali style” piracy with the intent to keep the crew (and ship) for ransom (for example the reports about the tanker MT Matrix I). This could lead to a faster increase in incidents and a need for new security measures, but still with completely different conditions as compared to piracy off Somalia. One reason for the difference is that the national control of the waters off western Africa is far better than the control off Somalia.
 

Control of waters is however difficult as can be seen in the news on were the Chinese fishing fleet actually catches the fish (see for example Chinese fishing fleet in African waters reports 9% of catch to UN). This is of course a very important question in regards to natural resources and not primarily a maritime security issue. But fishing disputes lead to maritime risks and also affects relations between nations. There is therefore probably a need for better control of the waters off eastern Africa; especially I imagine several African nations wanting a bigger piece of the fishing off their own coast.

But also elsewhere nations are putting in extra effort to take better control of their waters. I have earlier written about Russia and their interest for their arctic waters, but also Canada is preparing for new Artic challenges and to take control of their northern coast as the reduction of the ice makes the waters feasible to visit (at least part of the year). Canada is commissioning new naval vessels specifically for this purpose and I imagine they want to make sure that they secure control of their waters before anyone else does it.

Quantitative risk analysis – Ship security analysis for effective risk control options

Abstract

This study reviews ship security assessment. The objectives are to explore the possibilities for quantifying and performing a more thorough ship security risk analysis than that described in the International Ship and Port Facility Security code and to evaluate to what extent this more detailed analysis increases ship security and facilitate the effective selection of risk control options.

The study focuses on Somali-based maritime piracy, using piracy on the Indian Ocean as a case study. Data are collected using questionnaires and interviews with civilian and military security experts who possess firsthand experience of piracy off the coast of Somalia. The data are collected specifically for this study and describe and quantify the threat’s capability, intent and likelihood of exploiting a ship’s vulnerability. Based on the collected description of the threat, the study analyzes and describes: probability of detection by pirates, probability of successful approach, and probability of successful boarding.

The performed work shows good agreement between calculated probabilities and frequencies in the cited incident reports. Also, the developed scenarios describe the most important influences on the analyzed areas. The research therefore shows that the proposed risk-based approach, which uses structurally collected and documented information on the threat, can increase ship security by assisting in selecting risk control options. The approach also allows for a better understanding of the causal relationship between threat and risk than that provided in today’s security analysis by ship owners, for example. This understanding is crucial to choosing effective and robust risk control options.

Authors

Hans Liwång, Chalmers University of Technology and the Swedish National Defence College
Jonas W. Ringsberg, Chalmers University of Technology
Martin Norsell, Swedish National Defence College

The article is published in Safety Science Vol 58 pages 98-112 2013. See more (including fulltext) here.

Ship security analysis - the effect of ship speed and effective lookout

Abstract

The threat of piracy to commercial shipping is a concern for the protection and safeguarding of human lives, property and environment. Therefore, ships under piracy threat should follow security measures suggested by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somali. It is, therefore, important to choose the proper security measures for the right situation.

This study presents a simulation model that can be used for probabilistic risk assessments regarding the operation of commercial ships. This investigation specifically studies the pirate approach phase and quantifies the effect of ship speed and effective lookout. The purpose of introducing probabilistic risk assessment into the analysis of pirate attacks is to meet safety goals more effectively through a well-balanced combination of proactive and reactive measures whilst keeping focus on the intended over all purpose of the particular ship.

The study presents collected and documented knowledge regarding pirate capability, intention and likelihood to perform attacks. The knowledge is collected from experts with experience from the situation off the Horn of Africa. The collected information is input to an influence analysis that identifies the network of influences that govern the skiff approach. The simulation model describes piracy characteristics and decision making on the threatened ship, the characteristics and countermeasures of the ship under attack, as well as weather.

Based on a comparison with available statistics the overall conclusion of the work is that the threat analysis and the simulation model can quantify and explain how the studied risk control options affect the probability of a successful approach. The result therefore exemplifies how a quantified ship security analysis can support the recommendations in industry guidelines and also enable recommendations that to a greater extent can facilitate an educated decision by the ship operators.

Authors
Hans Liwång, Chalmers University of Technology and the Swedish National Defence College
Jonas W. Ringsberg, Chalmers University of Technology

The study is presented at the 32nd International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering (OMAE2013) in Nantes, June 9-14 2013, Session: 2-44 Risk Analysis and Safety Management 3.

Armed guards off Somalia lead to problems

There is at the moment in Swedish media (and hopefully IRL as well) a discussion about problems with security companies used to protect ships from pirates. There are reports of fishermen being killed by armed guards on ships and that the companies lead to arms smuggling and more, in short; the many security companies in the area lead to problems of them self. I’m not that surprised and have heard similar rumours the last couple of years. The one thing I’ve noticed the most in my research is that the high involvement of security companies has affected the incident reports negatively. I think the effects on reports are a symptom of the same thing: some of the companies are not that interested in telling the world about how they work and the ship owners hiring them understand why.

When I about two years ago had a brief discussion with the person investigating the possibility to regulate the use of armed guards on Swedish ships (as a protection against pirates) I suggested that there should be a risk analysis that looked in to the potential gain with the regulation versus the potential problems with such a regulation. As I understand there never was one, the suggested law is based on the legal possibilities. However the law says (as IMO recommends) that the ship owner should do a risk analysis before taking the decision about hiring armed guards. This leads to two problems:

(1) There is a big difference in a risk analysis for a ship and an analysis of the industry/business of armed guards on ships. In the analysis for the ship such things as dead fishermen and arms smuggling by security companies are not consequences included in the analysis.

(2) There is no (good and well thought through) guideline for how ship owners are to do the risk analysis and how and to what extent the analysis should be audited. There is a possibility that a useless analysis fulfils the requirements.

The result is a multinational business on the waters off Somalia without any real control and too many without enough ethics. I’m convinced that there are good security companies and serious ship owners, but for every month without control there is a risk that the good percentage will decrease.

Every wave encounter is unique (and potentially powerful)

Lately I’ve been dealing a lot with uncertainties, both stochastic and knowledge based, as well as the effects of waves on floating constructions. As a result I’ve reflected on what could be seen as an unpredictability of the maritime domain.

The shape (including height and so on) of waves at sea are stochastic, there are theories about the probability distribution but not necessary perfect ones. So there is both a natural (never ending) variation of waves (aleatory uncertainty) and the fact that we don’t know exactly how this variation looks like (epistemic uncertainty). So in short, every wave is unique and there is no way of measuring it after it has hit the ship. The wave was the product of that instance and place and can never be recreated.

Another interesting or daunting aspect of waves is the high level of energy (as a result of the density of water) and how effortless it can be transported for long distances (which lead to the highest waves were many waves combine to a monster wave). Terrifying results from waves has been seen as results of both tsunamis and monster waves suspected to sink ship without a trace.

The situation isn’t the same for other areas, they have their set of uncertainties (aleatory and epistemic).

So should we give up and say that we know nothing of the future at sea, off course NOT! But we have to be better at understanding and dealing with the uncertainties (aleatory and epistemic). We have to take decisions (about such things as design and security) even if there are uncertainties!

There is therefore a need to further develop marine specific knowledge (to reduce the epistemic uncertainty) but also to use that specific knowledge when it comes to marine studies.

In short if you don’t know about the specific aleatory and epistemic uncertainties in the maritime domain, don’t work with trying to analyze the future in maritime cases and if you are to commission a study for the maritime domain make sure to demand maritime competence.

National conflicts lead to maritime security risks world wide

Shipping is an international business and most voyages (even the short national ones) handle cargo or persons with important international aspects or ties. This is off course the reason for IMO - an international business needs an international governing body.

The international aspects of shipping also mean that national or local conflicts have effects worldwide. An example of this is the international effects the piracy off Somalia has caused where maritime security has climbed as a topic even on national political agendas far from Somalia. So piracy off Somalia has lead to a new focus on ship security, but also that criminals in other parts of the world has gotten influenced/inspired by the piracy off Somalia.

Another example of how conflicts in one part of the world affects shipping in a seemingly safe corner of the world is the discovery (in February) of parts for military vehicles onboard a Finnish ship in a Finnish port. The military equipment was on its way to Syria. According to news sources it was an attempt of smuggling from Russia to Syria. Not only has EU banned export of military equipment to Syria, but having this kind of cargo passing thru Europe is also a security risk opening up for people to wanting statute an example.

At the same time USA has this week announced that they will support Syrian rebels with equipment. I have not seen anything about the transport route, but I assume that (civilian) ships will be involved.

The conflict in Syria has thus spread out to sea and with it risks…