General
1.1 The 2016 Guidelines for approval of ballast water management systems (G8) are
aimed primarily at Administrations, or their designated bodies, in order to assess
whether ballast water management systems meet the standard as set out in regulation
D-2 of the "International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships'
Ballast Water and Sediments," hereafter referred to as "the Convention". In
addition, these guidelines can be used as guidance for manufacturers and shipowners
on the evaluation procedure that equipment will undergo and the requirements placed
on ballast water management systems. These Guidelines should be applied in an
objective, consistent and transparent way and their application should be evaluated
periodically by the Organization.
1.2 Articles and regulations referred to in these Guidelines are those contained in
the Convention.
1.3 The Guidelines include general requirements concerning design and construction,
technical procedures for evaluation, the procedure for issuance of the Type Approval
Certificate of the ballast water management system, and reporting to the
Organization.
1.4 These Guidelines are intended to fit within an overall framework for evaluating
the performance of systems that includes the experimental shipboard evaluation of
prototype systems under the provisions of regulation D-4, approval of ballast water
management systems and associated systems that comply fully with the requirements of
the Convention, and port State control sampling for compliance under the provisions
of article 9 of the Convention.
1.5 The requirements of regulation D-3 stipulate that ballast water management
systems used to comply with the Convention must be approved by the Administration,
taking into account these Guidelines. In addition to such ballast water management
system approval, as set forth in regulation A-2 and regulation B-3, the Convention
requires that discharges of ballast water from ships must meet the regulation D-2
performance standard on an on-going basis. Approval of a system is intended to
screen-out management systems that would fail to meet the standards prescribed in
regulation D-2 of the Convention. Approval of a system, however, does not ensure
that a given system will work on all ships or in all situations. To satisfy the
Convention, a discharge must comply with the D-2 standard throughout the life of the
ship.
1.6 The operation of ballast water management systems should not impair the health
and safety of the ship or personnel, nor should it present any unacceptable harm to
the environment or to public health.
1.7 Ballast water management systems are required to meet the standards of regulation
D-2 and the conditions established in regulation D-3 of the Convention. These
Guidelines serve to evaluate the safety, environmental acceptability, practicability
and biological effectiveness of the systems designed to meet these standards and
conditions. The cost effectiveness of type-approved equipment will be used in
determining the need for revisions of these Guidelines.
1.8 These Guidelines contain recommendations regarding the design, installation,
performance, testing, environmental acceptability and approval of ballast water
management systems.
1.9 To achieve consistency in its application, the approval procedure requires that a
uniform manner of testing, analysis of samples, and evaluation of results is
developed and applied. These Guidelines should be applied in an objective,
consistent, and transparent way; and their suitability should be periodically
evaluated and revised as appropriate by the Organization. New versions of these
Guidelines should be duly circulated by the Organization. Due consideration should
be given to the practicability of the ballast water management systems.