A HIGH RESOLUTION OPERATIONAL OIL SPILL MODEL AT SANTANDER BAY (SPAIN): IMPLEMENTATION AND VALIDATION

Sonia Castanedo,Ana J. Abascal,Beatriz Perez-Diaz,Justine Receveur,Raul Medina,Esterine Evrard,Maitane Olabarrieta,Julien Guyomarch,Mar Cardenas

doi:10.7901/2169-3358-2014.1.516

Abstract

ABSTRACT A High Resolution Operational Oceanography System that provides decision makers with short-term (within 48 hours) oil spill trajectory forecasting at local scale, has been developed in the Bay of Santander (Spain). The system is based on process models applied in a set of nested grids. Hydrodynamics in the study area are calculated with the COAWST modelling system which uses daily boundary conditions and meteorological forcing obtained from the European network MYOCEAN (http://www.myocean.eu/) and from the Spanish met office, AEMET, respectively. Daily COAWST's outputs and meteorological forecast are ready to be used by the oil spill transport and fate model, TESEO. A web service that manages the operational system and allows the user to run hypothetical as well as real oil spill trajectories has been implemented. Data from two hydrodynamics field campaigns and from experimental tests carried out with two types of oils have been used to validate the hydrodynamic and the oil spill models.

Highlights

Up to now, operational oceanography systems (OOS) which provide decision makers with oil spill trajectory forecasting, have demonstrated their usefulness in dealing with recent crisis involving dramatic environmental and socio economic impacts (Castanedo et al, 2006)
With the aim of increasing our capacity to respond to oil spill pollution at the coast, a set of high resolution operational oceanography systems (HR-OOS) are being currently developed in the framework of the SPRES (OIL SPILL PREVENTION AND RESPONSE AT LOCAL SCALES) project, co-funded by the European Transnational Programme (Atlantic Area)
One of the main challenges when approaching the HR-OOS, is to correctly model local scale physical processes whilst providing a response fast enough to be used in an emergency situation

Summary

Introduction

Operational oceanography systems (OOS) which provide decision makers with oil spill trajectory forecasting, have demonstrated their usefulness in dealing with recent crisis involving dramatic environmental and socio economic impacts (Castanedo et al, 2006). The system is based on nesting high resolution models and is made up by the following components: (1) Daily boundary conditions (sea level, ocean currents, salinity and temperature) and meteorological forcing are obtained from the European network MYOCEAN (http://www.myocean.eu/) and from the Spanish met office, AEMET, respectively; (2) COAWST modelling system which allows to exchange data fields between the ocean model ROMS, the atmosphere model WRF and the wave model SWAN, is the engine of the OOS (at this stage of the project only ROMS is implemented); (3) an oil spill transport and fate model, TESEO (Abascal et al, 2007); (4) a web service that manages the operational system and allows the user to run hypothetical as well as real oil spill trajectories using the daily forecast of wind and high resolution (O(20 m)) ocean variables carried out by COAWST.

Results

Conclusion