Final BALMAS Conference
Electronic BW Management Decision
Support System for the Adriatic
Commander Cosmo FORTE
Italian Coast Guard HQs
[email protected]
Piran, 20 September 2016
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
BWM DSS - Concept
The BALMAS Ballast Water Management Decision Support System
(BWM DSS) aims to support the competent Authorities in their
decision-making process on the operations related to the ballast
water management conducted by the vessels intending to call the
Adriatic ports, according to the IMO Ballast Water Management
Convention adopted on 2004 and other international regulations.
On the basis of the BW reporting provided by the vessels, the
BWM DSS could act as an Adriatic common regional decision
support system for the competent Authorities involved in the BW
compliance monitoring enforcement as well as in the
environmental emergencies prevention and response related to
the BW operations carried out by the vessels.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
BWM DSS - Realization and management
The software development and realization provided by the
Elman company (Pomezia - Italy) was funded by Balmas
project within WP8 basing on the models and the alghoritms
developed within the WP7.
The BWM DSS is hosted and managed by the Italian Coast
Guard Headquarters within the MAREΣ platform. Also, ICG
HQs provides for a suitable and secured internet access to
the web application by the managing of the web users
credentials as well as the hardware and software
maintenance and upgrading.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
BWM DSS - Structure
The system consists of the following separate modules
interacting with each other mutually:
1. Web Application
2. Early Warning System (EWS)
3. BW reporting system (BWRS)
4. The Decision Support System (DSS) and its database (DSS
DB)
5. Geographic Information system (GIS)
6. Management, configuration and monitoring system
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
BWM DSS - Login
The login to the system by the authorized users is allowed through
the following url:
https://bwmdss.guardiacostiera.gov.it.
Operators belonging to the competent authorities involved in the
control and management of BW operations (i.e. Environmental,
Maritime and Port Authorities) will have login the Home Page using
the credentials which have been provided.
The BWM DSS HP will allow them to be given access to the
operator's manual and use the functionalities associated with their
own user profile.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
BWM DSS - Login
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Early Warning System (EWS) - 1
The EWS module was developed to allow the sharing of
information between the competent authorities in charge of:
the management of environmental emergencies which
could impact on the uptake of ballast water by ships
the notifying of the alert to mariners according the Reg C-2
of the BWM Convention.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Early Warning System (EWS) - 2
The EWS module allows the operators to add the following
marine areas (with their attributes, coordinates and the
characterization of detected HAOP) on the GIS when they
have been adopted by the Adriatic Coastal States:
areas where it is recommended to avoid the uptake of
ballast water ("BW uploaded restricted areas") due to
particular environmental conditions observed there
areas where it is possible to operate the exchange of
ballast water ("BW exchange areas") in addition to those
already indicated by the BWM Convention.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Early Warning System
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
BW Reporting System (BWRS)
The BWRS module allows the collection, the checking, the
validation and the storing of the information provided by the BW
Reporting Forms submitted by the ships intending to call the
Adriatic ports.
The data capture form that the system provides to the operators
was borrowed by the form annexed to Res. IMO A.868 (20) of
27.11.1997 "Guidelines for the control and management of the
ships' BW to minimize the transfer of HAOP" with the addition of
crucial particulars of the ship (deadweight) as well as the
commercial operations which have to be performed by the ship in
the arrival port.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Data entering in the EWS and BWRS modules
The information and the data requested by the EWS and
BWRS may be entered in the two following alternative ways:
By a manual entering of data by the operator
or
By an automated request/delivery through a specific M2M
web services module provided by the related
national/local system (i.e. HAOP DB, PMIS, if any).
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Decision Support System (DSS) - 1
The implementation of the DSS module was based on the decisionmaking process models provided by the WP7 outcomes.
Such models have been tailored taking into account the real
availability and reliability of data needed to feed the processes as
well as the practical aspects regarding to the operative procedures
which could actually be implemented in a real context.
Also, the DSS takes into account the Paris MoU PSCC INSTRUCTION
48/2015/13 representing the guidalines for Port State Control
Officers in the verifying the BWM Convention compliance.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Decision Support System (DSS) - 2
The DSS module aims to support and guide the decisionmaking process conducted by the authorities in charge to
verify the compliance to the BWM Convention of the BW
operation carried out by ships intending to call their ports.
The following different basic selective approaches in DSS
have been used:
Risk assessment approach
Compliance history approach.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Decision Support System (DSS) - 3
The DSS integrates and supports the mutual interrelations of the
following basic elements:
 Collection & checking of BW management data
 Ship trustworthiness assessment
 BW Discharge Assessment (BWDA)
 BW Risk Assessment (BWRA)
 Decisions on BW management and actions
 Compliance monitoring and enforcement (CME)
 RA review
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Decision Support System Database (DSS DB)
The data received from external sources as well as the data
coming from the decision process need to be managed
properly, have to be safely stored and need to be accessible:
these functionalities are supported by the DSS database.
It provides the DSS with the information needed (e.g., vessels
particulars, vessels compliance history, processes carried out
and related results, etc.) as well as it provides the information
sharing with other systems, the provision of data for a DSS
review process and also operates as back-up for a later review
process of a single decision.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Decision making-process flow
Both the BWDA and the trustworthiness processes need to
be conducted for each decision-making process in order to
support the decision for the selection or not of the vessel for
the CME.
Because the BW donor ports/positions may be different, the
BWRA need to be conducted separately for each tank
declared as in ballast and for which the BWM methods used
by the vessel cannot be considered as acceptable by the Port
State Authority.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Geographic Information System (GIS)
The DSS provides a GIS which allows the displaying of the
Adriatic maritime areas and ports.
The GIS integrates and displays the AIS information
broadcasted by the ships as collected by the Mediterranean
AIS Regional Exchange Server called MAREΣ. Also, it allows
the using of different graphical functionalities (e.g. drawing
of areas, measuring of distances and bearings, coordinates
converter, zoom, etc.).
The main toolbar allows the using of the system
functionalities.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Management, configuration and monitoring
The BWM DSS provides for a system administration tool
which allows the following operations:
Settings management for collection of data from sensors or
other external systems
Configuration of web users login, groups and profiles
System and web users access monitoring
Inbox management.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Web users login, groups and profile configuration
The BWM DSS allows the management of the web
users accounts by the:
Release of the login credentials (username and
password);
Definition of the user attributes (e.g. registries,
profiles and functions enabled, filters, groups
etc.);
Editing of the accounts and their attributes.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Release of the login credentials (registries)
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Web users profiles
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Groups
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Enabling of the system functionalities
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
BWM DSS – Legal aspects and possible next steps
The BWM DSS has been implemented within the MAREΣ platform
which was been realized under the prevision of the Article 9 of the
Directive 2002/59/EC establishing a Community vessel traffic
monitoring and information system.
A formal adoption of the BWM DSS as an official Adriatic IT
platform - supporting the Adriatic States Authorities to comply
with the BWM Convention requirements by sharing data,
information and actions taken on the BW management and related
possible threats to the marine environment - should be needed for
the establishing of a common regional decision support system.
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
Italian Coast Guard Headquarters
Thank you for your kind attention
Commander(ICG) Cosmo FORTE
Coast Guard Headquarters
Viale dell’Arte, 16 – 00144 ROME
[email protected]
The project is co-funded by the European Union
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance