A Critical Review of the Effects of Oil Spillage on Land in Nigeria

Abstract

Crude oil production is the largest and most profitable business in the world. From its development phase to production phase, many disasters have occurred in oil industries. Oil spill is the most important type of environmental disaster which usually occurs. It has impact on humans as wells as on plants and wild life, including birds, fish and mammals. Drilling and production accidents and everyday human activities are the main causes of oil spills. The oil spills are hazardous to environment and also affect human health. The adverse effects have been seen on soil, ground water, plants and animals. Immediate actions are required to eradicate the spill problem. Oil spill at any point may result into explosion and fire hazards. Effective attempts have been made for the remediation of the soil and cleaning the water resources on onshore and offshore. In this paper, some of the known and new methods of remediation have been discussed to solve the oil spill problem. Remediation techniques for marine as well as onshore environment are available but still more advance researches are required. New techniques like soil vapor extraction, degradation, bioremediation are major methods of soil remediation. Physical, chemical bioremediation methods are used for cleaning oil spills in land environment.

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