An Operational Supporting System for Oil Spill Emergencies Addressed to the the Italian Coast Guard

Roberto Sorgente,Federica Pessini,Alessandro Signa,Dario La Guardia,Marco Arrigo,Alberto Ribotti,Antonia Di Maio,Gennaro Oliva,Angelo Perilli,Andrea Pes

doi:10.3390/jmse8121035

Abstract

Oil spill models are used to simulate the evolution of an oil slick that occurs after an accidental ship collision, malfunctioning of oil extraction platforms, or illegal discharges intentionally released by ships into the marine environment. We present an integrated operational oil spill prediction system that improves capacities in preventing and mitigating maritime risks from oil spills. The objective is to provide forecast information about the transport and the fate of a hypothetical oil spill under Nearly-Real Time hydrodynamic conditions in the western and central Mediterranean Sea. This complex forecast system is developed in the framework of the project SOS-Piattaforme & Impatti Off-Shore to the needs of Italian Coast Guard and other institutions, such as the Ministry of the Environment. This service has been operational since July 2020. The innovative aspect of this work is a graphical user interface (the GUI), which allows to select properties, time, and location of a potential oil spill and show the evolution of oil slick concentration and oil fate parameters. This platform represents the first component of a future Decision Support System aimed to identify the risk assessment of oil spills in order to better manage emergencies and minimize economic damages.

Highlights

The evolution of an oil slick that occurs after an accidental ship collision or during oil extraction or other oil tanker activities produce a severe impact on the sea, in short and in long time, hitting biological, economic, political, cultural, and social matrices [1,2,3,4]
To verify the impact of the initial conditions on the evolution of the dispersion/concentration and transformation of an oil, known as Oil Fate Parameters (OFP), and the functioning of this work is a graphical user interface (the Graphical User Interface (GUI)), some system tests were carried out through the GUI assuming the same scenarios with different initial inputs
Thanks to a very simple and user friendly interface, the GUI, the end users may dialogue with the oil spill prediction model, producing simulations of transport and fate of an oil spill under Nearly-Real Time hydrodynamic conditions

Summary

Introduction

The evolution of an oil slick that occurs after an accidental ship collision or during oil extraction or other oil tanker activities produce a severe impact on the sea, in short and in long time, hitting biological, economic, political, cultural, and social matrices [1,2,3,4]. The Mediterranean Basin is very exposed to similar events due to the high maritime traffic, recording about 33% of the oil traffic in the world, 15% of the total maritime traffic and 10% of the heavy traffic. The most recent accidental oil spill was in October 2018 in the Liguro-Provençal basin, due to the collision between the Ro-Ro ship Ulysse and the container Ship CLS Virginia, impacting on the international protected marine area known as Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals [15,16]

Methods

Results

Conclusion