The International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) coding system published by the International Maritime Organization was incorporated into the proposed system that Taiwan is going to establish. In order to better fulfill the maritime shipping requirements in the international society, the project studied many marine spill response systems in the 3 major continents, such as America, Europe, and Asia, so that good experience and workable systems can be adopted into the new system. The OPRC-HNS Protocol, 2000 has been announced in active on June 14th, 2006 when the 15th signed state enactive the Protocol. This Protocol also encouraged Taiwan to work with the major trend in the marine spill response in the world. In order to co-operate the GHS system, Taiwan government has established marking and management system regulated as CNS 6864 and CNS 15030. The targets are explosives, toxic materials, infectious materials, radio active materials, and pesticides. Chemicals in order to enter Taiwan has to go through a series of processes for authorization prior to touching the land, such as territorial maritime application, harbor authorization for entering, and on land manipulations certificate. Comparing with the good experience and workable systems in other countries, the current oil response system is criticized so that a new version for maritime oil and chemical spill response is drafted as a primary product of this project. The results of the project study also revealed the current situation of the chemical use in the harbors around Taiwan so that the risk of chemical spills in the surrounding sea can be realized and therefore better prepared for emergency. The establishment work is not only the product of the project this year, but also the work list in order to fully establish the response system in the future. This project study also indicated the work scopes for the near and far future. The most urgent work is to establish an executable taskforce for small-scaled spills so that Taiwan can quickly respond to the spills before they get uncontrollable. The long-term work is to establish the ecosystemetic evaluations around Taiwan, continuously grow the response capability, and get involved with international co-operation in the multi-country maritime organizations.

marine,chemical,response