Oil Spill Incidents on Coral Reefs: Impacts and Remediation Technologies

Abstract

Despite the great ecological and economic importance of coral reefs, these ecosystems are especially sensitive to environmental changes and vulnerable to impacts from various anthropogenic activities, including contamination by oil spills. Oil spills occur worldwide, mostly in marine environments, and have been reported for decades. Furthermore, the main oil transport routes in the oceans are close to important coral reefs and many of the major oil spills in history have occurred near these areas. Because of the widespread use of petroleum products, offshore oil and gas production has significantly increased its potential since the 1990s, thus increasing the risk of accidents in marine environments and consequently on coral reefs. Despite the great risk of oil exploitation to coral reefs, there is still no efficient, sustainable, and large-scale applicable remediation strategy to protect or to clean up reefs impacted by oil spills. Current methodologies to remediate oil pollution in marine environments are based on the use of chemical dispersants; however, these can be more harmful to corals than oil itself. Meanwhile, the use of bioremediation strategy, through the manipulation of the coral microbiome, has been proposed as a possible alternative to mitigate the impacts of oil on coral reefs.