Apart from the impacts on marine environment and wildlife, mangroves areas can also be seriously affected by oil spills. Mangroves in Singapore such as Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, Chek Jawa and Paris Park are often victims of these oil spills happenings. Mangroves are essentially vital environments which house a wide diversity of animal and plant life. As most of us might know, mangroves often border coastlines and they are well-known to be very adaptable ecosystems. They help stabilize coastlines, and also act as natural water filters, filtering and trapping excess deposits which allow clean water to be washed out into the sea, making the water quality conducive for coral reefs’ growth. The mangrove branches and roots help to greatly reduce coastal erosion by dissipating the energy from incoming waves, currents, tides as well as storm surges.

Mangroves with roots and leaves covered in oil

Photo source: Oil spill reaches Pulau Semakau

Mangroves stricken by oil spills.

Photo by Marc de Verteuil

Despite their remarkable adaptability, mangroves are very much vulnerable to oil spills, in particular, the toxicity of the oil. Oil spills can kill mangroves in a time span of a few weeks to months. These oil-infested mangroves, if not dead, would suffer from a series of onslaughts of leaf staining, leaf death and defoliation. Over time, oil spills can have chronic effects on the mangroves which are profound and lasting. Mangroves that are exposed to large amount of oil are very likely to suffer from decreased canopy cover, reduced productivity, lower growth rates and germination failure, just to name a few. With these negative impacts of oil spills on the mangroves, they are unable to function effectively like normal mangroves. This leads to indirect consequences such as erosion in the regions affected as a result of mangroves’ branches and roots not functioning well. If the oil spills are not handled timely and adequately, it will be an uphill battle to restore these affected mangroves.

Oil on Sargassum seaweed at Pulau Semakau mangrove

Photo source: Oil spill reaches Pulau Semakau

Mangrove leaves and Sargassum seaweed in oil

Photo source: Oil spill reaches Pulau Semakau

Hermit crabs covered in oil slick

Photo by Ria Tan

Looking past the effects of oil spills on the mangroves themselves, we see that the wildlife that mangroves sustain is also in danger with the onslaught of oil spills in the region. With the death of these local mangroves, it regrettably equates to the destruction of habitats for organisms residing within them. In Singapore’s case, the local mangrove systems support a diverse range of wildlife species, some uniquely exclusive to our region. This would undoubtedly mean that with the destruction of these mangroves habitats, the endangerment and extinction of these exclusive wildlife are fast approaching. Therefore, when oil spills intrude these mangroves, they pose as a liability to the environment as well as the wildlife supported by it.

The direct impacts that oil spills have on mangrove wildlife are similar, if not the same, to that of marine wildlife. The oil would clog up the gills of animals such as crabs, mudskippers and oysters. Even if the gills are cleaned up externally, there would still be oil residue left internally within the gills, eventually causing the deaths of these animals. Basically, mangrove wildlife and marine wildlife are very much affected to the same extent by oil spills that occur in their region.

However, it is crucial to keep in mind that extent of damage oil spills cause varies in accordance to factors as mentioned in the beginning of this section. The severity of damage is not a constant and varies from case to case and thus has different types of impacts on the environment and wildlife. Yet, it should be clear that oil spills are very harmful to the environment and its wildlife regardless of the level of damage it introduces to them. It is also important to note that the list of the impacts of oil spills presented above is not exhaustive, and there are definitely more dire consequences of oil spills on the environment. Therefore, feel free to look them up and expand your knowledge on oil spills and their impacts should you feel interested.