A new paradigm in oil spill modeling for decision making?

Abstract

Contingency plans for large oil spills rely on conducting numerical simulations that would predict the probable transport and fate of oil. Oil spill models vary in complexity from ones that assume a straight-line trajectory of oil on the water surface without any change in oil properties to fully three-dimensional models that account to all processes affecting the fate of oil. The model proposed by Bourgault et al (2014 Environ. Res. Lett. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/5/054001 9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/5/054001 ) is intermediate in complexity in a sense that it accounts for the temporal variation of surface currents, but does not consider the transformation of oil. We believe that such an approach has a great merit as a screening tool for decision making.

Keywords

• oil spill
• oil trajectory
• windage