SPILL MODELING AS PART OF THE RESPONSE AND MONITORINGSTRATEGY AT THE SEA EMPRESS INCIDENT

摘要

On February 15, 1996, the Sea Empress wentaground at Milford Haven off the Pembrokeshire coast of SouthWales, Great Britain. Between February 15 and 21 some 72,000tons of Forties blend crude oil were released into the marine environment.The model OSIS (oil spill information system) was developedjointly by AEA Technology and BMT Marine InformationSystems. OSIS was successfully used by AEA Technology for theU.K. Coastguard Agency’s Marine Pollution Control Unit (MPCU)as a response tool to predict the fate, trajectory, and likely beachingof oil, thus aiding in the decisions and optimizing responsestrategy. The MPCU has subsequently contracted AEA Technologyto develop OSIS to predict the long-term fate of the dispersedoil and to identify areas of deposition following oil-sedimentinteraction.