Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

8-12-2020

Keywords

Canadian Arctic Governance, Risk management, Risk prevention measures, Remotely operated search and rescue ships, Unmanned ships

Abstract

This chapter is a proactive risk exploration of hypothetical remotely operated search and rescue (SAR) ships in the Canadian Arctic. The harsh and remote environment in the region, combined with complicated coastlines and many uncharted or poorly charted traffic routes, makes it one of the most challenging SAR areas. Canada has committed itself to safety, environmental protection and sovereign presence in the area by maintaining joint SAR centres of federal government departments and mobilizing private volunteers. The characteristics of Canadian SAR response in the Arctic rest with its high dependency on heavy equipment such as aircraft, helicopters and icebreakers, entailing prolonged hours of response time. As recent climate change impacts and maritime traffic increase in the northern waters disclose safety gaps, innovation in SAR assets is anticipated. The safety gaps may be filled by state-of-the-art remote control technology. This chapter discusses remotely operated unmanned ships for SAR response, exploring their opportunities, risk dimensions and governance implications.

Comments

The version of record for this open access chapter is available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44975-9_5

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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