North Energy

Værøy and Røst

Værøy og Røst

North Energy has, in conjunction with a specialist team from Akvaplan-niva AS, performed a project resulting in detailed documentation of areas and sites that are of natural and cultural significance in connection with environmental analyses and emergency preparedness assessments, and which are important to the planning and preparedness for acute oil pollution events. The field portion of the work was carried out in July 2009, and encompassed, among other things, the collection of localised photographic material. County registers of cultural monuments and the SEAPOP database of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research were included in the underlying basis for this work. You can see the route of the journey here.

The extensive material was subsequently systematised and organised for different application areas. One of the goals of the work was that the material should be made available to the public through digital maps and the Internet. Moreover, on this page you will find links to selected themes presented in Google Maps, and it is also possible to download files that enable you to see the same material in Google Earth, with access to photographs at full scale from the image server at Akvaplan-niva. The links are marked in blue - click on them to open the map or download files. Google Earth is a program that is freely available and can be downloaded here.

Emergency planning with a focus on seabirds in the coastal zone

The most vulnerable are the seabirds, who spend most of their time on the surface of the ocean, from where they dive for food. These are auks and cormorants - the pelagic-diving seabirds. In addition to each bird being vulnerable, these species have a tendency to gather in large flocks in vortex areas where the is good access to food. An oil slick could thus impact many birds simultaneously. Species that spend mush of their time flying, and which take their food from the surface, are able to avoid oil slicks to a greater degree, and are less vulnerable to the loss of many individuals. Among others, this concerns species of gulls. This has a significance to oil protection measures at sea. It is important to collect the most oil possible before it hits the coast, however seagoing emergency preparedness is also important to large flocks of seabirds that may find themselves many miles from their colonies on the coast. During the winter, a number of species of auks spend all their time at sea while searching for food. During an oil protection action, both the oil slick and the flocks of seabirds on the surface are monitored, and decisions will be made concerning, for example, the directing of oil protection vessels or the use of dispersants. Evaluations of the trade-offs are constantly being made, and access to correct information is crucial. Near the coast, the situation is complicated. During the nesting season, the different species use different parts of the bird cliffs to find nesting places, and the probability of encountering oil that has washed ashore is different. Some species, for example auks and puffins, nest in holes in the ground. On the large bird cliffs at Røst, puffins are high up on the cliff, whereas the seashore and spray zones above the tidal water zone are where the cormorants, black guillemots and waders live. Kittiwakes and white-breasted guillemots share places in the steep slopes a few metres above the sea, where they nest on narrow shelves. In sum, this causes the different species to be exposed to oil on the beach to varying degrees, and knowledge about their vulnerabilities is important for planning good oil preparedness for emergencies along the coast.

There are also vulnerable marine mammals in the area, including the grey seal and common seal. The area is extremely productive, which among other things is due to good circulation of water, and large shallow areas. A thematic map has been made in Google Maps giving examples of vulnerable species, shallow areas, landscapes and protective interests and the shoreline in the area that has been examined. Links for downloading kmz files for use in Google Earth are collected together at the bottom of the page.

Emergency planning with respect to cultural monuments

Cultural monuments can have many degrees of protection. Some cultural monuments are automatically legally protected, others have a less comprehensive degree of legal protection and are at present in daily use as, for example, wharves and operating buildings. Some cultural monuments are quite visible, whereas other may be difficult to differentiate from the rest of the shoreline. In an oil slick action, it is important to have acquired a knowledge of where the cultural monuments are located, and to have included them in an emergency preparedness plan. On islands on the outer coast, it will often have been an old settlement at the most suitable areas for, for example, making landfall. Cultural monuments that contain wharves and operating buildings that are in daily use for fishing activities may be relevant as depots and the like during an action. Emergency preparedness plans must take into account the possible protected status of such facilities, and attempt to select those facilities for use in an action that involve the least possible conflict with cultural monuments, and pay special regard to those that may be utilised. When oil affects the beach zone, it can be difficult to identify that an area contains valuable cultural monuments, especially when they are not visible to lay persons. It is quite important in such cases that the cultural monuments are included as vulnerable resources in the prioritisation chart and emergency preparedness plan.

A thematic map has been made in Google Maps showing important cultural monuments in the area.

This part of the project was also presented as a poster at the Codstock Festival in Henningsvær in May 2010. The poster is available for downloading here.

Further use of the material

North Energy will make additional use shoreline the material in further analysis and planning work, and also desires that the material find broad application among the local authorities and businesses. The complete photographic material (more than 2000 photographs) are extremely suited for communicating local expertise concerning important prioritised resources to all parts of an emergency preparedness organisation. Akvaplan-niva will ensure that this material is available on its image server, together with the more than 10,000 other localised photographs that the company has collected.