The Effects of Bioremediation on the Oil Degradation in Oil Polluted Environments

Abstract

Oil spill accidents in marine environments occurred increasingly to over 300 times per year in Korea (Kim, 1995). Oil spills cause severe damage to the marine ecosystem and oil residues persist for a long time. The fishery industry and public health are often threatened by oil contamination in the marine environment. Hence it is necessary to promote a study on countermeasures to oil spills including restoration technology of oil polluted environments. Interest in bioremediation has been evoked since the Exxon Valdez accident. There are many study sites for the bioremediation of oil-polluted environments such as open-water or shoreline environments. In comparison with open-water experiments, much more bioremediation field studies have been carried out on shorelines (Swannell et al., 1996). These experiments varied considerably with respect to geographic area, oil type and concentration, study site dimensions, position of oil on the shore, sediment composition, and the analytical methods used to estimate biodegradation. These trials can be classified into two groups; application of fertilizers, and application of specific microbes (seeding or bioaugmentation). However, there have been few evaluations of the effects of seeding on contaminated shorelines or in soil. To evaluate the effect of fertilization and inoculation of oil degrading microorganisms on oil biodegradation, our experiment was performed on the sea shoreline artificially contaminated with crude oil.