Maritime Institute In Gdańsk is taking part in four international projects realized under the frames of the Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013 (for more go to: eu.baltic.net):

• ‘Maritime Safety - Transport and Environment in the South Baltic Sea Region - Baltic Master II’
• 'Introducing Maritime Spatial Planning in the Baltic Sea - BaltSeaPlan'
• 'Sub-regional risk of spill of oil and hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea - BRISK'
• 'Efficient, Safe and Sustainable Traffic at Sea - EfficienSea'

All above-mentioned Project are part-financed from the European Regional Development Fund.

Balic Master II    

The overall aim of Baltic Master II project is to improve the land-based response capacity to oil spills originating in the Baltic Sea, as well as to enhance the prevention of pollution from maritime transport.
The project is divided into four Work Packages.
The Lead Partner, Swedish Region Blekinge manages Work Packages One and Two facilitating all project management and communication issues.
Work Package Three (WP3), led by World Maritime University in Malmö, focuses on oil-spill preparedness, response and coastal management linked to contingency planning. The work will involve case studies, development of contingency plans, and theoretical exercises which will exercise the new contingency plans. In order to develop a comprehensive readiness platform, WP3 will also explore the links between coastal management and contingency planning.
Work Package Four (WP4), led by Maritime Institute in Gdansk, includes several tasks that all aim to prevent pollution caused by maritime traffic. WP4 will primarily focus on the existing legal framework regulating maritime transport in the Baltic Sea, including a review and analysis of the present regulations to determine how these can be better enforced in order to make maritime transport safer while reducing pollution. WP4 will also propose concrete measures that, when implemented, may improve maritime safety.

The anticipated results from the Baltic Master II project are:

• Best practice report including a checklist for oil contingency planning
• Several local and regional oil contingency plans
• A scenario exercise CD, for exercising oil contingency plans
• Recommendations for how to integrate coastal management into contingency planning
• Recommendations for improved and harmonized waste management onboard and in ports
• Research brief: Assessment of maritime conventions
• Management plan for reduced pollution from maritime traffic
• A political Vision for the Baltic Sea, based on the project results
• Development of a strategy on how local and regional stakeholders can influence and accelerate adoption of these strategies

More about the project at:
www.balticmaster.org

BaltSeaPlan  

The main objective of the project is to support the process of developing, introducing and implementing maritime spatial planning throughout the Baltic Sea in a coherent manner.
14 partners from 7 UE countries around the Baltic take part in it. Poland is represented by two Maritime Offices (Gdynia and Szczecin) and by our Institute. The project work plan covers following activities:

• collection of information on the sea use, e.g. transport, fishery, tourism, protected areas, military areas, wind farms, sea bottom exploration, cable and pipes, wracks, aquacultures etc. (in a form of data sets and maps)
• elaboration of proposals for National Maritime Strategies
• development of new methodologies and standards for practitioners in maritime spatial planning, based on series of pilot projects.

Thanks to intense international cooperation a common Baltic Sea Region wide vision for maritime spatial planning will be developed as well.

The project kick -of meeting took place in Hamburg in the beginning of April and was followed by the opening conference in Stralsund (Germany) on 18th June. So, now the real work started! Project will last 3 years and will end in January 2012.

For more information about the project and its outcomes please visit:
http://www.baltseaplan.eu

BRISK    

The project is a response to an increased risk of accidents and environmental damage in the Baltic Sea due to the significant increase of ship traffic, particularly the oil tanker traffic in the Baltic Sea. Major oil spills can affect economy of several countries and are hence a trans-national problem.
The project will result in increased preparedness of authorities to respond to medium size oil spills and enhanced sub-regional co-operation. The project partnership consists of the national authorities from all 8 EU countries around the Baltic, responsible for oils pill preparedness around the Baltic Sea together with HELCOM. For the purpose of the project the Baltic Sea is divided into sub-regional areas of responsibility according to international law and treaties in order to implement a three tier approach. Polish partners in the project (Maritime Office in Gdynia and our Institute) will co-operate with Lithuanian once within the South-eastern Baltic sub-region.

Following activities are to be carried out:

• Risk assessment: Common methodology, unified data collection, common risk model, common assessment of risk of pollution and impact, Identification of additional response resources needed
• Development of proposals to remove administrative obstacles to the efficient response
• Preparation of integral and comparable investment plans for reponse resources

The expected results of the project will enhance the safety and environment of the Baltic Sea:

• A common understanding of the concept of risk and damage will be the first important step in the direction of a unified and consistent response in the Baltic Sea
• The description of common criteria for required level of response and comparisons with existing response capacities will provide a comparable description of the needs for response resources
• The risk analysis will provide important mapping of high risk areas and hence help the authorities responsible for oil spill to a better preparedness on a national, sub-regional and Baltic Sea level
• The investment plans will provide a basis for donors to optimise the resources. Therefore, funding within the maritime safety sector may become more attractive to potential sponsors

The project kick-off meeting took place In Copenhagen in the middle of January, first working meeting devoted to elaboration of a common methodology for risk assessment analysis took place at the end of June – representatives of our Institute were present at both events.

For more information about the project and its outcomes please visit:
http://brisk.helcom.fi/

EfficienSea  

The Project objective is to find means and measures to secure efficient, safe and sustainable traffic on the Baltic Sea. There There 16 partners from 6 countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia and Poland) taking part in this project. Poland is represented by Maritime Office in Gdynia, Maritime Academy in Gdynia, National Institute of Telecommunication, University of Szczecin and by our Institute.
The project covers wide spectrum of issues related to sea transport, thus its expected result are also very broad:

• To prepare and mature maritime authorities for major future investments needed to implement e-Navigation in the Baltic Sea region
• To assess which of the emerging innovations in e-Navigation would make processing and dissemination of maritime data/information more efficient - leading to improved maritime safety. EfficienSea will enable the development of e-Navigation data products and services to be delivered by maritime authorities
• To deliver a tool box for simulating the effects of increased maritime traffic and associated risks, enhancing risk management capabilities of maritime authorities
• To deliver an AIS (FATDMA) planning tool, to be used by AIS Authorities, for improved management of AIS resources, optimising the AIS system capacity
• To provide a HELCOM AIS tool resolving the problems of invalid transmitted AIS data. This will help ensuring the quality of AIS data for purposes of statistical and risk analysis
• To raise awareness and enhance attractiveness among young people on maritime careers. Awareness will result in more applicants to maritime education and jobs, and to higher standards among recruits
• To develop risk identification algorithms for DSS tools improving the continuous traffic safety evaluations made by VTS operators and decreasing their workload enabling them to contribute more to the communication with vessels in need of information or assistance

The kick-off meeting of the Project took place in Helsinki (or more precisely on the ferry during Helsinki-Stockholm-Helsinki cruise) in the very beginning of April. In June our Institute’s representatives visited also Norwegian partners, so work in two pilot areas (Gulf of Gdansk and Sunmoere region in Norway) has started! It will result in dynamic sensitivity maps for two regions, which in turn will be used for dynamic risk assessment.
For more information about the project and its outcomes please visit:
www.efficiensea.org