Many ISCO News readers will know or will have been privileged to have met Dr. Miles Hayes, a Coastal Geomorphologist and Sedimentologist who uniquely also branched out into oil spill processes. He authored over 250 articles and reports on numerous topics relating to tidal hydraulics, river morphology and processes, beach erosion, barrier-island morphology, oil pollution, and petroleum exploration. Based on extensive field experience throughout the world, he developed innovative techniques regarding environmental protection, depositional modelling, and shoreline processes.

In respect of just Oil Spill response, Dr. Hayes had first-hand experience at many of the major oil spills that have occurred in the past 30 years, including the Metula (Chile, 1974), Urquiola (Spain, 1977), Amoco Cadiz (France, 1978), Ixtoc I (Gulf of Mexico, 1979), Exxon Valdez (Alaska, 1989), and the Gulf War spills (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, 1991). For many of these spills, he conducted studies on the effects and effectiveness of cleanup methods, and the long-term fate and effect of oil residues.  He led a multi-national field team for 6 weeks in 1992 conducting a comprehensive assessment of the oil impacts on intertidal shoreline habitats in Saudi Arabia. These surveys were repeated in 1993 and 1997.

In 2002-3, he was the Project Manager for the Oiled Shoreline Survey of 800 km of the Saudi Arabian coast, leading 7 teams conducting detailed shoreline mapping to support environmental damage claims against Iraq from the Gulf War oil spills. As part of the NOAA Scientific Support Team, he provided 24-hour technical support to the U.S. Coast Guard for oil and chemical spills nationwide. He co-authored over 60 papers, reports, and abstracts on the effects of oil spills on coastal environments and created the original concept of sensitivity mapping and shoreline sensitivity ranking for oil spill planning in 1976. This sensitivity mapping concept has been a key component of oil spill planning and response since then, with worldwide application. He also revolutionized the approaches to inlet protection strategies, merging his knowledge of flow patterns in inlets (based on over 30 years of research on tidal inlets) with the operational experience of on-scene spill response, to develop realistic, yet effective strategies for boom placement and oil recovery.  He applied these same approaches to spill response in rivers, with the development of the Reach Sensitivity Index, which includes strategies for spill response in rivers.  There can be few of us who have not benefitted, either directly or indirectly from his work.  Dr. Hayes passed away in March 2022.

Please refer to the attached letter announcing the formation of an endowment fund for graduate student research travel in cooperation with the School of Earth, Ocean, and Environment (SEOE) at the University of South Carolina. The aim is to provide an impactful travel experience, not just funds for students to give a talk at a conference. Dr. Miles Hayes worked in over 40 countries, and he knew first-hand how impactful such travel can be to someone’s perspective, connections, and knowledge.

Kind Regards

The ISCO editorial team