Traffic density has increased recently in Korean waters due to an expansion of the sea trade and the development of coastal fisheries. The enlargement of the coastal industrial belts and the development of coastal inslands further increases marine traffic. The rapid increase of marine traffic has often resulted in marine casualties with the attendant loss of life, damage to property, and marine pollution. Especially, tanker casualties may destroyed the food web and an untold amount of ocean resources. Un regard to the potential of tanker spills in Korean waters, systematic research in this field is lacking. In this paper, the data relating to a total of 261 tanker casualties in Korean waters has been compiled and statistically anlaysed. The result of this study describes the general trend of marine casualties in Korean waters, and describes the casualtiy database, from which their causes and consequences are derived and this results in the determination of the causal relationships connected to tanker casualties, and quantifies the effective level of causal factorsin Korean waters.

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