Déjà vu: New oil spill poses cumulative risks to protected coastal environments in the South Atlantic

In 2022, new oil spills appeared again on tropical beaches; this time, they were concentrated on the Brazilian semiarid coast. This equatorial region was already impacted by the 2019/2020 event, but the impact of this new spill and its risks have not yet been discussed in literature. This article aims to provide the first data on this latest oil spill event as well as the cumulative risks presented by the two oil spills. The 2022 spill was mainly composed of fragments smaller than 0.15 m, with ∼ 11.6 m3 of oil collected. Oil was detected across the Equatorial coastline, over an extension of ∼ 342 km. The oil started arriving on the east coast of the Ceará State on January 25 and drifted westward, reaching new sites, until February 16. The 2022 spill reached 14 municipalities, 15 marine protected areas (MPAs), and 84 beaches. Geospatial analysis of this event—overlapped with data from the most extensive spill ever recorded in the tropical oceans (2019/2020)—indicates that 8 MPAs and 73.5 % of the beaches have been affected for a second time. The repeat of such an oil incident suggests that improved detection and mitigation strategies are necessary, along with management systems in the event of future pollution occurrences.