On the effects of wave drift on the dispersion of floating pollutants

Abstract

The movement of floating pollutants such as oil slicks on the surface of the sea is due to a number different factors, among which wave drift is certainly significant. In principle, it has been known since Stokes' time that a floating particle is subject to the movement caused by the orbital motion of water particles and that an average drift velocity results because the trajectories are not closed. In the past, however, this effect was often either disregarded or simply included with the surface wind induced current. In recent times the difference between the two effects has been conceptually clarified, so that the average wave drift in random one-dimensional seas has been the object of research and the results are now included in most handbooks and models for oil slick forecasting. Due to the chaotic nature of the wave field, however, the drift also causes floating substances to disperse, and this phenomenon is a much more neglected area of research. Recent work by Bovolin et al. [IAHR Congress, 1997] and Sobey and Barker [J. Coast. Res. 13 (1997)] has brought the subject to attention, and computational tools can now be made to quantify the effect and to verify when and how it should be taken into consideration in oil slick accident practise. The work presented in this paper is based on random simulation of the wave induced Eulerian velocity field in a directional sea, by making use of standard offshore wave directional models and on the ensemble averaging of floating particles trajectories in order to compute the spatial dispersion.