The RAMOCS project is one of the funded by the AMPERA ERANET an European coordination to foster prevention and best response to accidental marine pollution.

The primary objective is to develop fingerprinting tools for heavy oils and new products and to assess their risk in spills in different European regional seas scenarios.. The specific objectives are the following:

• To improve fingerprinting tools for heavy oil for source recognition in the marine environment.
• To improve assessment tools for heavy oil weathering in the marine environment.
• To develop strategies to assess the major weathering processes (dissolution, evaporation, photooxidation, biodegradation) affecting the spillage of hazardous noxious substances.
• To develop methodologies for identifying the toxic species occurring in the spills by using bioassay-directed analysis.
• To establish toxicity thresholds of toxic components in sensitive species considering single and combined joint effects.
• Application of the developed tools to several case studies and define a general strategy to be included in the response/contingency plans, for its use in a European dimension.