Guidelines issued for pollution risk classification at sea

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has issued Circular 26/2016 to regulate the classification of marine areas based on the level of risk of pollution.

Illustrative image. Photo: HUU CHI

The circular consists of 4 chapters and 17 articles, detailing relevant criteria, regulations and guidelines for provinces and cities nationwide to follow.

Accordingly, the classification must be carried out on rectangular areas in three different zones: coastal, near-shore and offshore zones.

It requires the employment of scientific methods to collect statistics about the pollution level in each rectangle. Statistics should demonstrate the pollution cycle including origin and transformation progress.

There are four criteria to classify areas according to pollution risks, which are the level of pollution or pollution risks, the scope of pollution, the level of environmental sensitivity, and the threat to human health, marine and island ecology systems and the exploitation of marine and island resources.

The entire process follows three steps – calculation, evaluation and mapping.

(Source: NDO)