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Oil Pollution in the Mediterranean Sea: Part I pp 215–254Cite as

Numerical Modeling of Oil Pollution in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea

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Part of the book series: The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry ((HEC,volume 83))

Abstract

This chapter presents a summary of major applications in numerical oil spill predictions for the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Since the trilateral agreement between Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel back in 1997, under the framework of the subregional contingency plan for preparedness and response to major oil spill pollution incidents in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, several oil spill models have been implemented during real oil pollution accidents and after oil spills that were detected from satellite remote sensing SAR data. In addition, several projects cofinanced by the European Commission addressed particularly issues with oil spill modeling, taking the advantage of developments in operational oceanography, as well as collaboration with the Mediterranean Oceanographic Network for Global Ocean Observing System (MONGOOS), with the European Maritime Safety Agency CleanSeaNet (EMSA-CSN), and Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC). Major oil pollution incidents in the Eastern Mediterranean and the oil spill modeling applications carried out are summarized in this work. Three well-established operational oil spill modeling systems – two of them characterized by different numerical tools MEDSLIK, MEDSLIK II, and the POSEIDON oil spill models – are described in terms of their applicability to real oil spill pollution events, the Lebanon oil pollution crisis in summer 2006, the case Costa Concordia accident, and the spill event associated with the collision of two cargo vessels in the North Aegean Sea in June 2009. Finally, an overview of the present-day capability of Eastern Mediterranean countries in oil spill modeling is provided in this chapter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See http://www.reuters.com/article/cyprus-spill-idUSL6N0FN1Z320130717 and http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/40-tons-oil-spilled-into-sea-turkish-firm-admits.aspx?pageID=238&nID=50910&NewsCatID=348.

  2. 2.

    See www.medess4ms.eu/.

  3. 3.

    The standard volume unit for crude oil measurement, the 42-gal barrel (“bbl”).

  4. 4.

    See www.nereids.eu.

  5. 5.

    Is a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on random sampling to obtain numerical results that might be deterministic in principle.

  6. 6.

    Is the average velocity of a particle floating at the free sea surface in the direction of wave propagation.

  7. 7.

    See www.marine.copernicus.eu.

  8. 8.

    Available at http://osm.hcmr.gr.

  9. 9.

    See http://medslikii.bo.ingv.it/.

  10. 10.

    Is the righting of a sunken vessel using rotational leverage.

  11. 11.

    http://www.witoil.com.

  12. 12.

    http://marine.copernicus.eu.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oceanography Center, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    George Zodiatis

  2. Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, Fondazione, Lecce, Italy

    Giovanni Coppini & Svitlana Liubartseva

  3. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Anavissos, Attica, Greece

    Leonidas Perivoliotis & Evi Bourma

  4. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

    Robin Lardner

  5. 3D Seismic Lab – School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Tiago Alves

  6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Nadia Pinardi & Antonio Augusto Sepp Neves

  7. Marine Systems Modeling Group, National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool, UK

    Michela De Dominicis

Authors
  1. George Zodiatis
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  2. Giovanni Coppini
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  3. Leonidas Perivoliotis
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  4. Robin Lardner
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  5. Tiago Alves
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  6. Nadia Pinardi
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  7. Svitlana Liubartseva
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  8. Michela De Dominicis
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  9. Evi Bourma
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  10. Antonio Augusto Sepp Neves
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Correspondence to George Zodiatis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Angela Carpenter

  2. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, S.Yu. Witte Moscow University, Moscow, Russia

    Andrey G. Kostianoy

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Zodiatis, G. et al. (2017). Numerical Modeling of Oil Pollution in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. In: Carpenter, A., Kostianoy, A. (eds) Oil Pollution in the Mediterranean Sea: Part I. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, vol 83. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2017_131

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