Research on the impact of human activities on the marine environment

Anna Lunde Hermanssons research has attracted a lot of attention. On Friday 11 October sche defends her thesis Holistic assessment of ship scrubbers, with emphasis on the marine environment.

With the dissertation just around the corner – describe your feelings right now!

I am feeling nervous and excited, I can definitely feel the pressure, but I also look forward to discussing my research.

Can you give a brief summary of your research?

My research focus on marine environmental effects from ship activities and more specifically exhaust gas cleaning systems, also called scrubbers. Scrubbers are installed on ships to enable them to continue to run on cheaper residual high-sulphur heavy fuel oil while still being compliant with stricter global sulphur limits in marine fuels and exhaust. The scrubbers remove sulphur and other contaminants from the exhaust by spraying it with (sea)water, producing large volumes of heavily acidified and contaminated scrubber water that is discharged back into the marine environment.

I have explored the impact of scrubbers from several perspectives and assessed how the emissions and discharges connected to scrubber-use compare to other sources, what the marine environmental risks are and how the economic aspects can be included. It has been an iterative process, involving many different scientific disciplines, where one of the main outputs have been to inform decision-makers.

What would you say are the most important results presented in your thesis?

I would say that the most important result is that scrubbers are not a sustainable technology. In all the different assessments, using different scientific methodologies and analysis, scrubbers are shown to unproportionally contribute to contaminant load, increased environmental risk and costs from the discharge of scrubber water.

What have you enjoyed most about your time as a PhD student at Chalmers and M2?

There are many stimulating and enjoyable aspects of doing a PhD but what I have enjoyed the most are the personal meetings, exchanging ideas and knowledge with colleagues both within and outside academia. The (former) unit of Maritime Environmental Sciences has been a fantastic place to work and I am very proud to be a part of that group.

There’s a life after the dissertation as well – what will you do after October 11?

Sleep!
But after that I have an ambition and wish to stay in research and continue to contribute to the understanding of how human activities impact the marine environment.

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